Employees are taking sensitive computer code from their own companies at three times the rate they were a year ago, according to new research into so-called insider threats, as record numbers of disgruntled workers quit their jobs with pandemic restrictions easing.
An analysis of data of 700,000 company devices by the cyber security group Code42 found that there were about 65m attempts made by staff to exfiltrate source code from their corporate network in the three months to the end of June, up from about 20m in each of the previous three quarters.
The jump is part of a broader rise in employees exposing company data, either by unwittingly moving it outside of workplace networks or by deliberately taking it, according to Joe Payne, Code42’s chief executive.