Businesses are struggling to secure their data due to employees not recognising their responsibility for digital clutter; the proliferation of digital documents and files without thought for managing the security consequences, according to a cyber security company.
The global report “Sorting out digital clutter in business” from Kaspersky Lab found a number of correlations between the creation of digital clutter at work and human habits behind it, such as … organising a fridge. It revealed that nine out of ten (95 per cent) people who see their fridge as organised said the same about their working digital life.
Digital clutter includes the files, documents and data created at work without the business’s full visibility or control over how they are stored and who has access to them. It becomes a security risk when as the cyber firm reports some 72pc of employees store documents at work that contain personally identifiable or sensitive data, which if exposed could either reputationally or financially damage a business, its employees and potentially its customers.
Tackling digital clutter is a challenge for businesses and one of the most important steps is understanding who is responsible for it, says Kaspersky. Nearly three quarters (71pc) of employees believe either business leaders, the IT or security team should be responsible for ensuring emails, files and documents have the appropriate access rights, rather than themselves.
The problem according to the report is that while IT and security teams can control the access given to employees to access files and folders, there is room for human error. Whether accidentally or intentionally, for example, employees could give their colleagues or those outside the business access credentials or bypass IT administrators with new collaboration tools. With employees creating and collaborating on multiple documents simultaneously, they all must take responsibility for their actions causing digital clutter.
In employees’ everyday life there are habits that may correlate with the creation of digital clutter. As well as the majority of people who have similar habits with their fridge organisation as they do their digital life, 88% of those who re-organise their fridge before a holiday, also do so for their work files.
Maxim Frolov, Vice President of Global Sales at Kaspersky Lab said: “With data volumes increasing exponentially, business leaders should take notice of digital clutter and its potential security risk. It is true that organising your fridge won’t guarantee your defence against security breaches, but implementing the same mindset towards digital clutter will make you more resilient against cyber threats. Employees need to be educated on how to best manage their digital assets, and there should be simple but effective protection in place; one that does not add complexity but reduces it.”
