Employees blamed for 96 per cent of security errors

Only four per cent of IT professionals trust their end-users to make sound IT security decisions.

Research of 150 IT professionals by Sophos found 96 per cent failed to trust fellow employees to make sensible decisions, while 48 per cent said end-user negligence was in charge for them having to repair security issues.

However, 26 per cent said senior management commit the worst IT security offences, while only 19 per cent said the worst offences were committed by IT people themselves.

Damian Barry, president of world Business Technology, said: “Creating a comprehensive security policy is hard enough while not having employees accidentally subverting the protocols we've got in place.

“However, taking the time to create an all-encompassing educational campaign may be too time-consuming. Using the programme that Sophos has developed in preference to creating something from scratch may also help me keep my clients informed so i will be able to continue targeting other tasks.”

Sophos has developed a free training tool for IT professionals, named ‘IT Security DOs and DON'Ts', that features material corresponding to quick the right way to begin an instructional programme, posters and a handbook for end-users with advice on creating strong passwords.

Mark Harris, vice-president of SophosLabs, said: “We're excited that we have got been ready to transform our security expertise right into a range of academic tools in order to both inform and entertain.”