Kaspersky Lab finds link between employee fridge habits and digital clutter at work

 Kaspersky Lab today announced a survey report, “Sorting out digital clutter in business,” which revealed nine out of ten (95%) people who see their refrigerator as organized, said the same about their working digital life. The global report found correlations between the creation of digital clutter at work, employees’ everyday habits and taking responsibility for managing it all.

Digital clutter includes the files, documents and data created at work without the business’s full visibility or control over how they are stored and who has access to them. For many people, their fridge habits shed light on how they manage digital content at work.

Along with the majority who keep an organized fridge and an organized digital life, 88% of people who reorganize their fridge before a holiday, also do the same for their digital files. However, more than half (66%) who have bought the same item twice for their fridge by accident, have also found it difficult to locate a digital document while at work.

Additionally, Kaspersky Lab found that digital clutter is becoming a security risk for businesses as employees are not recognizing their responsibility for managing it. Eighty percent of people do not think they are responsible for ensuring that digital documents have the appropriate access controls or limits. Furthermore, nearly three quarters (71%) of employees believe either business leaders or the IT department or security team should instead be responsible, rather than themselves.

Source: Kaspersky Lab ‘Sorting out digital clutter in business’

“With data volumes increasing exponentially, business leaders should take notice of digital clutter and its potential security risk,” said Maxim Frolov, vice president of global sales at Kaspersky Lab. “It is true that organizing your fridge won’t guarantee your defense against security breaches, but implementing the same mindset towards digital clutter will make you more resilient against cyber threats. Employees need to be educated on how to best manage their digital assets, and there should be simple but effective protection in place; one that does not add complexity but reduces it.”

To avoid becoming a victim of digital clutter, Kaspersky Lab urges businesses to consider:

• Training employees about practical skills applicable to daily work and guidelines for managing digital content.
• Regularly reminding staff of cybersecurity best practices and maintaining cybersecurity knowledge, for example by hanging posters with advice around the office
• Making backups of essential data to ensure corporate information is safe and regularly updating IT equipment and applications to avoid unpatched vulnerabilities
• Finding a dedicated solution for small and medium businesses with simple management and proven protection features; such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud.

Kaspersky Lab commissioned research specialist OnePoll to survey 7,000 employed adults from December 2018 to January 2019 across UK, USA, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Brazil, China, Mexico, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Russia and Turkey who work in an office and use computers.

To read the full report on digital clutter, please follow this link: https://kas.pr/far2