Data Security and the Twentysomethings

Dateline: February 28, 2014

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

This week’s idea looks at data security across age groups.  In a recent blog at HBR.org, titled, Do Millennials Believe in Data Security?, Editor Sarah Green shared some recent statistics about data security.  The SoftChoice survey found that,

28.5% of twenty-somethings keep their passwords in plain sight, compared with just 10.8% of Baby Boomers.  They’re also significantly more likely to store work passwords on a shared drive or word document that isn’t itself password-protected, and more likely than older workers to forget their passwords.

And it gets worse! They’re more likely to email work documents to their personal accounts, move documents via cloud apps that IT doesn’t know they have, and lose devices that would give whoever found them unrestricted access to company data. Basically, in every way that Softchoice measured, the youngest workers were the most likely to lose data or leave themselves open to hacking.

But – here’s the kicker — they’re also the most informed about the risks. Younger workers were also the most likely to say that their company has a clear policy on the downloading of cloud apps; that their IT departments have communicated about the risks of cloud apps; and that their workplace has a clear policy on how to protect information.

Is your IT dept getting in the way? How do you encourage your team to take appropriate security measures?  What are the consequences if they don’t follow policy?

That’s a wrap!  Have a nice weekend.

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