BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--While more than 98% of businesses conduct pre-hire background checks on potential new employees, less than one-quarter of businesses proactively screen current employees - exposing CXOs and Boards to significant safety, security and compliance risks. However, business and security executives are 3 times more interested in closing the employee security gap than HR and IT. These are just some of the key findings from the Endera Insider Risk Survey of nearly 300 executives.
1 in 1,000 employees are arrested every month, but only 1 in 4 CXOs surveyed believe they would know if an employee had a recent criminal incident - as most businesses cease background screenings at the point of hire. At the same time, insider threat management cyber security tools focus only on data and device level behavior, data loss prevention or identity and access management – creating a blind spot for executives increasingly accountable for risks posed by employee behavior.
Additional key findings of the Endera Insider Risk Survey:
CXOs Want To Close Blind Spots
The Endera survey reveals that less than 30% of senior executives say they would know if an employee was arrested, put on a criminal watch list, or lost a key certification or license. But CXOs overwhelmingly want to close this insider risk blind spot:
- 91% want to know if an employee has been added to a criminal watchlist
- 82% want to know if an employee is booked or arrested
- 53% want to know if an employee loses a key certification
- 48% want to know if an employee is in financial distress
- 33% want to know if an employee is involved in a lawsuit
Employee Risk Now A CXO, Board Issue
Background checks have historically been seen as an HR function, and IT does a lot to detect insider threats. However, the Endera survey reveals general business and security executives are the most interested closing the post-hire security gap. 79 percent of security executives and 81% of operations executives would screen or consider screening their entire workforce every day if they could.
Service Companies Transferring Risk To Customers
For service companies, where employees interact directly with customers or have access to customers’ valuable assets, the insider threat risk is even greater. That is why the Endera survey finds service companies are more than twice as likely to want employee risk alerts as their counterparts in other industries.
Within the service industry, the risk to executives in fast growing “on-demand” workforces with significant interaction between customers and employees/contractors, such as those in transportation and home health care, have become particularly complex and acute.
“One of the leading indicators of insider threats is pressures that employees face outside the office – be they criminal, civil, financial, or domestic. The Endera survey suggests CXOs and Board members are flying blind when it comes to changing patterns in these activities,” said Raj Ananthanpillai, chief executive officer, Endera. “Ironically, the risks that are identified as critical to an employer are not tracked once the individual becomes an employee, and the survey results should serve as a wake-up call to executives trying to understand and defeat insider threats.”
The survey of 278 business executives in varying roles and industries was conducted in December 2016. Survey data is also available segmented by small businesses, mid-sized firms and large enterprises. Find the survey here.
About Endera
Endera is the leader in providing continuous risk alerts to mitigate Insider Threats. Endera continuously monitors and aggregates thousands of external public data sources and provides relevant risk alerts. Insider risk starts from the outside and works its way into the organization. Endera alerts on the pressures and the rationalizations that insiders succumb to in the process of harming customers, colleagues and their employer. Our secure, easy-to-use, cloud-based platform is available as an identity-based, monthly subscription service, accessible from any web browser without any software for IT to install. Originally developed for the federal government to help the FBI screen flight school applicants, Endera helps enterprise security departments detect and reduce insider risk and prevent potential workplace fraud, theft and violence in regulated industries such as transportation, healthcare, finance and infrastructure. To learn more visit www.Endera.com.
