Your employee is your biggest cyber threat

A recent article from ITProPortal paints an alarming picture of corporate security, and perhaps most alarming is the network's largest threat is rapidly becoming the employee. More specifically, it's the employee's actions that are placing organizations at risk, from downloading unapproved apps and visiting unauthorized websites to circumventing approved administration processes. Certainly, there isn't a malicious intent; however, damage is being done nonetheless. 

So why is this happening? The causes aren't that surprising: 

• Technical issues often arise in collaborative meetings, and when they do employees turn to "trusted personal" apps and processes to get on track quickly. 
• Employees often "cut through red tape" by circumventing the IT department. 
• Employees are more simply more comfortable with private apps and they tend to use them instead of corporate-sanctioned apps, especially for collaboration and communication. 
• Employees are increasingly demanding seamless technology integration in the workplace, much like they are experiencing in their personal lives. 
• Employees are not trained on the proper way to download and integrate apps, and they often implement risky procedures. 

These issues have allowed technology to creep into the corporate platform piecemeal, instead of in an orderly, sanctioned way. 

So is the future hopeless? Not quite, as ITProPortal explains: 

In the meeting room, employees need technology they can trust for seamless, flexible solutions to video conference calls. Customers expect more improved service levels and the economic landscape is becoming more competitive by the day. So, it’s essential that individuals are equipped with meeting room technology that not only enables them to offer impeccable service, but that can be relied upon and that they feel comfortable with. But employers must balance that need for application autonomy with ensuring that the network remains secure and their IT team have visibility and control over applications used by the business and its workforce.