Could your employees be unintentionally putting your business at risk? While companies prioritize protection against external cyber threats, the often-overlooked unintentional insider threats can lead to significant financial and reputational risks for your business. These threats can come from simple human errors, such as accidental data sharing, misconfigurations, or falling victim to phishing attacks.

How safe is your business from an employee stealing data? Employee data theft refers to the unauthorized access, transfer, or misuse of a company’s confidential data by its employees. Whether driven by malice or negligence, this type of data theft poses a significant risk to your business’s security and reputation. As incidents of insider threats rise, it becomes crucial for companies to identify the warning signs and implement the necessary preventive measures.

Chances are, every single person who reads this article has experienced a type of data breach at least once: a phishing email that looked like a late bill fee that led to identity theft, an accidental email sent including proprietary company or customer data, a parent calling to ask if they should send money to a prince abroad (after the fact), or an open backpack that leads to the physical theft of a mobile device.

Already in 2024, nearly 10,000 publicly disclosed global data breaches affected hundreds of millions of user records. Apple, Meta, and Twitter all succumbed to data breaches in 2024 (and numerous times in the past), providing the public and its shareholders with a stark reminder that malicious activity constantly makes user data susceptible to cybercriminal activity, no matter the platform or level of password security.