A global survey by KnowBe4 found that 53 percent of employees are completely comfortable reporting security issues to the IT team. In doing so, only 43 percent of those surveyed also feel that the IT team in their organization is very helpful.
Across the world, approaches to solving security problems vary. This can be seen, for example, in employees’ approaches to keeping their devices secure. While in the Netherlands (38%) and Norway (40%) multifactor authentication is a staple among quite a few employees, in the U.S. (15%) and Germany (14%) they work significantly less with the solution. Workers worldwide do feel very confident about detecting online scams. 83 percent are very or fairly confident that they can recognize e-mail phishing.
The results come from a global survey conducted by KnowBe4, provider of a platform for training and simulated phishing exercises. The survey surveyed 6,000 employees across Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway and South Africa about their cyber security habits. Cyber security in Belgium was not surveyed, although the figures from our neighboring countries can probably tell us something about habits in our country.
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Half of employees have absolutely no problem reporting security problems
Netherlands and Germany pull down average
In the survey, a lot of questions focused on reporting security problems to the IT team. This question yielded interesting insights and uncovered still major work points in some countries.
When asked how comfortable an employee feels about reporting a security problem to the IT team, it emerged that only 53 percent felt perfectly comfortable making a report. In the Netherlands, that percentage drops to 39 percent, which is in line with the German figures (35 percent). In South Africa, people are more confident in their relationship with the team, as nearly 80 percent there would pass on a security incident without concern.
The question then burns on the lips to know why employees do not always feel comfortable. The survey provides an answer to that as well. In the Netherlands, the reporting process is the biggest stumbling block, with 45 percent of employees indicating it as a reason for not reporting. Besides in the Netherlands, the reporting process is also the biggest problem in the U.S. (35 percent) and Norway (54 percent).
German participants also saw the reporting process as a problem (26%), but were even more likely to report that they did not feel comfortable reporting a security problem (31%). In the UK, trepidation was the greatest and as many as 43% indicated that this was why they did not want to report.