Beware of exiting staff sneaking out company data

One fifth of employees have admitted to using common cloud applications - such as Dropbox or Google Docs - to smuggle confidential corporate data outside the company.

Increasing investment in cloud applications is doing wonders for efficiency and productivity, but an alarming number of employees said they have uploaded proprietary company data to these applications with the intent of sharing it outside the business.

New research by Sailpoint found 20% of the 1,000 office workers surveyed in large companies admitted to this.

Most employees said although they were aware of strict policies around intellectual property (60%), a quarter of them would still take copies of corporate data with them when leaving the company.

And most of the time, this works for them - as two thirds are still able to access those cloud storage applications after leaving their jobs, pointing to a vast security deficit.

"The survey results are an eye opener of how cloud applications have made it easy for employees to take information with them when they leave a company," said Kevin Cunningham, founder and president at SailPoint.

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He pointed out that a number of companies have purchased cloud applications without involving the IT department. This, combined with employees being able to use these cloud apps, makes it "virtually impossible" to manage access to applications and the sharing of mission-critical data.

"In order to establish control over this ‘bring your own app’ phenomenon, it’s critical to provide specific incentives for end users to follow corporate policy such as offering users a seamless login experience in exchange for using a central access control framework."