How Risky Behavior Leads to Data Breaches

Many employees have a lot on their plate and work hard to keep up with their rigorous job responsibilities. To meet the demands of their position, they create shortcuts to expeditiously accomplish their tasks and not get mired in the details. Herein lies the problem of risky employee behavior – in many cases, employees are not aware that their shortcuts or truncations of protocol are creating gaping holes in an organization's cyber hygiene. They may not mean to harm the organization, and their behavior is certainly non-malicious, but their risky behaviors have turned them into insider threats all the same.

This chapter is about this behavior and how it can lead to devastating outcomes. In reality, a great deal of this risky behavior can be stopped by creating cognizance around the implications of these actions. In most cases, employees are woefully unaware of the consequences of their actions, and what they don't realize...