Do you remember that embarrassing incident on a live news programme when the news reader was presenting from the front a newsroom and the journalist sitting behind him was watching porn on his computer?
Rooky error. Well, it turns out that it is senior leadership teams, hidden away in their own offices presumably, who are the worst for committing the porn faux-pas at work, resulting in their company devices being infected with malware.
Research from ThreatTrack Security revealed that 40% of security professionals found that a device used by a member of their company’s senior leadership team had been infected by malware because of a visit to a pornographic website.
This reckless behaviour is putting corporate networks at risk, as once a device is infected, it can easily spread through the internal network.
But porn isn’t the only reason for inconspicuous malware downloads: In addition, 45% of respondents said they have found malware on a senior leader’s device because the executive allowed a family member to use it, with one-third of security professionals discovering it on an executive’s mobile devices because they installed a malicious app.
What’s even more worrying is that the majority of businesses aren’t disclosing when one of these high-profile security breaches occurs. The study shows that nearly six in 10 malware analysts reported they have investigated or addressed a data breach that was never revealed by their company. Maybe they’re worried they are going to be told off for watching porn at work.
The research, which questioned US businesses, also revealed that the complexity of malware, the volume of malware and the ineffectiveness of anti-malware solutions are other top problems these professionals have in protecting their organisation from security breaches.
