44% of 1,198 UK business owners polled by Reboot Online have had issues with data breaches and password security in the past year - 20% up on the year before.
44% have said they have experienced a former employee trying to log into corporate apps or data - a 19% increase on pre-pandemic numbers. After internal investigations, most businesses have managed to pinpoint the persons in charge of the security offences - 51% of them were hired as executives. Managers come in second place with 34% of internal security breaches made by them. directors were the least likely to break security protocols (3%).
The majority of data breaches (56%) involve private chats. Business owners have noticed former employees trying to access private conversations from when they were a part of the company.
In second place are learning resources, with 47% of ex-employees still trying to benefit from these work perks. Other applications most accessed by former employees include emails (41%), client(s) data/information (33%), internal reports (26%) and toolsets (19%).
Marketing and digital media companies are most likely to suffer from security breaches (52%). This is followed by business and consulting (46%), healthcare (41%) and charity organisations (38%).
Reboot Online found out that 79% of businesses do not change all their security passwords after an employee departs, and that 71% of businesses do not offer proper personnel password training to employees.