The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: April 26, 2009

Official News page 5


REAL LIFE NEWS: DATA THEFT BRIBERY

by Hazed

In a poll of 600 workers at busy railway stations in London, a survey has found that more than one third of them would give up their company's most sensitive data in exchange for a bribe. They were asked what it would take to persuade them to download and hand over sensitive company info to a complete stranger, who suggested a range of incentives from a meal out to offers of over ten million pounds.

Now this survey was conducted to tie in with an information security trade show in London, so it probably isn't surprising that it found such shocking results. On the other hand, maybe the results are not quite so shocking... after all, two-thirds said they wouldn't accept a bribe. And anyway, what the survey really showed was that one third SAID they would exchange secrets for cash, not that they would actually do it!

Something else to think about: although conventional wisdom says that corrupt insiders are the greatest security threat, rather than hackers, a recent survey which looked at real, actual data breaches, found otherwise. Take a look at the details here before believing what a bunch of random people at railway stations say!

Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page