A recent study out of the U.K. suggests that organizations, fueled in part by security challenges during the pandemic, are beginning to impose harsher consequences on employees who breach security policy.
Nearly 40 percent of respondents said they had dismissed employees for such transgressions, according to the report from Centrify.
While security leaders often pay with their jobs for lapses that lead to breaches at their companies (think Target and Uber), organizations long have struggled with how to handle everyday employees who step outside the bounds of security protocols either deliberately or inadvertently.
“Handling employees that run afoul of company security policies requires walking the line between promoting accountability and enforcing standards on one hand, while also cultivating honesty and openness about activities that may present risk,” said Tim Wade, technical director, CTO team, at Vectra. Clear ramifications also “incentivizes timely self-reporting to give the security team the lead time they may need to take action before any resulting damage may be done.”
Companies typically have been hesitant to impose more severe punishment,…
