Survey Says: Employees Go Rogue for File-Sharing Needs

Today, we launched a new survey that uncovers deep issues around the rogue usage of consumer-based cloud services in business. IT teams, did you know that nearly 2 in 5 (38 percent) of previous and current file-share users have transferred sensitive files through file-sharing services that are not approved by IT? And more shockingly, 1 in 4 (27 percent) users report still having access to documents from a previous employer!

The survey conducted online by Harris Interactive among more than 2,000 U.S. adults illustrates a major exposure for today’s businesses when it comes to the transfer and storage of data through unapproved and insecure cloud-only file-sharing services.Many of our customers have dealt with the concerns around Dropbox and other consumer-grade services and decided to switch to Egnyte to mitigate the risks. Wholesale drug company H.D. Smith, for example, which services more than 3,000 independent retail pharmacies, institutions, durable medical equipment retailers, acute care and alternate site facilities nationwide, is in the process of standardizing on Egnyte company-wide and moving employees away from Dropbox."In order to ensure our most critical business files are protected at all times, we're in the process of standardizing on Egnyte," said Mike Betty, IT Manager at H.D. Smith.  "Some of our users were using Dropbox to share documents, and not only did that put our company data at risk, we had no way of knowing what they were doing or who was accessing those files. Egnyte's encryption and auditing capabilities give us the control and visibility we need."

Check out some of the survey highlights:

- 51% of employed individuals agree that collaborating on file-sharing services (such as Dropbox and YouSendIt) is secure for business documents.- 46% of employed individuals agree that it would be easy to take sensitive business documents to another employer.- 41% of employed individuals agree that they could easily transfer business-sensitive data outside the company using a file-sharing service.- 31% of employed individuals agree that they would share large documents that are too big for email through a file-sharing service without checking with their IT departments.- 38% of employed individuals that have used file-sharing services have transferred sensitive files on an unapproved file-sharing service to someone else at least once; 10% have done it 6 or more times.These findings illustrate that IT needs to deploy a secure enterprise-grade solution that meets the file-sharing needs of employees, while protecting sensitive business data from the risks associated with insecure file sharing via the cloud. Implement Egnyte as your company-wide platform since  it’s simple for employees to use and protects data at an enterprise-level to make both users and IT happy at the same time.Survey Methodology: This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Egnyte from August 22-26, 2013 among 2,020 adults ages 18 and older; among whom 1,006 were identified as currently employed. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact pr@egnyte.com.