A recent study concluded that over 43% of IT leaders recognized that a contributing factor towards potential data linkages from the inside is due to a stressed or overworked workforce.
According to research by the TUC, workers in the UK are putting in the most prolonged hours in the European Union. This is nearly more than two hours per week than the average EU benchmark.
However, in spite of the additional hours, their work is regarded as less productive than Danish and German equals. A fundamental reason for this that has been put forward is employee fatigue.
What is Fatigue
Fatigue is defined as the point where a staff member has used up their emotional or physical abilities, particularly towards the end of a protracted period of exasperation or strain.
In some cases, such a scenario can be initiated by the work environment itself, due to an ethos of rigorous deadlines. But this factor can also be associated with personal and individual drives.
In the UK alone, fatigue is a growing phenomenon and brings with it expected and less likely outcomes. Companies have long realized that fatigue is a major worry – causing low efficiency and turnover and adding to illness – the World Health Organization has officially classified fatigue or burnout as a syndrome, described by feelings of exertion, detachment, pessimism towards one position and role in the workplace resulting in diminished output.
However, fatigue is not just detrimental to workforce well-being and organizational productivity. With regards to data security, it can also be a major factor in causing data leaks from the inside – whether inadvertent, careless or purposeful.
Until recently, companies considered system administrators and other workforce employees with privileged access to sensitive data as the largest threats to data leaks.
However, today, almost every end-user that can access or be the entry point to classified information or some sort of sensitive data could inadvertently or purposefully initiate a data breach or disrupt the business.
There are numerous ways in which documents and PDF files can leave a company, and these are endlessly growing, from basic USBs to email and cloud applications. With a workforce that is now increasingly working from home, the risks are even greater since companies no longer have full control over user’s devices and the systems they access.
And while IT leaders realize that over 45% of their workforce is stressed and overworked, these concerns must be addressed immediately to enhance productivity and employee well-being.
Data breaches that take place due to carelessness or accidents usually find their way to the burned-out workforce due to the symptoms of lack of attention, indifference and exhaustion that make it a perfect blend to make mistakes.
The Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon in 2019 further concludes that 30% of all data breaches that took place due to staff errors were due to burned-out employees who are just as significant risks to data security as spiteful insiders.
Given the same logic, fatigued staff can also take easy shortcuts when it comes to document protection and data security. And in a stressed-out work environment with stringent deadlines, they could look at unsecured ways of getting the job done without considering the implications.
Dealing with discontented, dissatisfied and unenthusiastic employees or independent contractors can be challenging. The individual may decide to act purposefully by stealing or destroying sensitive information, out of spite, or they could accidentally compromise the data out of carelessness (such as sharing a confidential or sensitive document with and unauthorized user or third-party). In either case, this can prove fatal for any organization.
Insider threats take place when people with unauthorized access to company data misuse that access and faith, either purposefully or unintentionally, and damagingly impact the discretion, honour and accessibility of the company’s vital data and systems.
Although data threats can arise from any stage and from any individual within the company or outside the organization that has access to classified data, it is imperative to have dynamic systems in place to prevent such incidents from occurring.
This brings us to the fact that organizations must increasingly emphasize on their employees’ well-being and highlight the importance of adequate data and document security.
A new global survey from Observe IT revealed that over 89% of UK IT leaders believe that happy staff is likely to secure an organization’s data rather than an unhappy one.
And in spite of the statistics, more than 45% of global businesses are still not investing in the well-being of their staff. Given the milieu of current world uncertainties, both in political and economic scenarios, it can be easy to imagine how this issue can be a trigger point for an insider threat.
Conclusion
Recognizing employee behaviour and having the right document security tools such as digital rights management (DRM) can discern atypical, distrustful or policy-breaking movement. By implementing document DRM you can control who has access to documents, for how long, from where, using only authorized devices.
And if a breach does occur, you can instantly revoke access to all company documents. So DRM can be both fundamental in catching the early indicators of a data breach and helping to further mitigate any breaches that have occurred.
