Many employees can access millions of company files from the first of days

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• Many employees can access millions of company files from the first of days

On average, new employees can access about 6 million corporate documents on their first day on the job, according to a new report. Based on an analysis of 4 billion files across fifty different organizations, cybersecurity vendor Varonis discovered a huge data overexposure problem in the manufacturing industry. “Manufacturers have sensitive and also impressively valuable data that puts them at risk. And as we've seen with WannaCry, DarkSide, and many other attacks, ransomware can shut down production lines and businesses. Too often, information is overexposed and underprotected,” said Matt Lock, CTO at Varonis.

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In the report, Varonis maintains that over-exposed and under-protected data can cause all kinds of problems; of employees who copy, share and delete proprietary information, and unknowingly reveal it to cybercriminals, who then use it to consolidate themselves on the corporate internet.

Limit access and impact

Varonis found that, on average, each employee can access about a fifth of an organization's files. The number rises to a quarter for small and medium-sized companies. It is disturbing that 4 out of 3 organizations have more than a thousand private files open for each employee. In fact, on average, more than 3 confidential files, such as those containing financial information, trade secrets or business plans, are open to everyone. The study also found poor active directory hygiene with more than half (fifty-six%) of companies surveyed having more than five hundred accounts with never-expiring passwords, while forty-four% had more than one with zero wraith users. Based on his findings, Varonis thinks companies should proactively support data access to limit the damage attackers can do. “Organizations should ask themselves XNUMX questions to better prepare for an attack: Do you know where your critical data is stored? Did you know that only the right people have access to it? Do you know they are using the data appropriately? If you don't know the answers to these XNUMX questions, you're not going to be able to identify the early stages of a cyberattack,” says Lock.