Survey: 48 Percent of US Government Employees Take No Responsibility for Cybersecurity Risks

A recent survey revealed that only 13 percent of U.S. government employees believe they are personally responsible for addressing cybersecurity risks, and 48 percent take no responsibility at all.

The report from Dtex Systems, “Uncovering the Gaps: Security Perceptions and Behaviors of Today’s Government Employees,” surveyed 1,000 public and private sector employees and extracted a subset of government employees as the basis for its findings.

In addition to the fact that nearly half of respondents denied any responsibility for security, the study also found that 1 in 3 government employees believe they are more likely to be struck by lightning than to suffer a data breach.

A False Sense of Security

CNBC suggested that the survey respondents may have a false sense of confidence, pointing out that U.S. government spending on cybersecurity jumped from $7.5 billion in 2007 to $28 billion in 2016. That increase is largely in response to the constant nature of threats such as phishing and ransomware: According to a Symantec report, 1 in 131 emails sent in 2017 contained malicious attachments, and ransomware increased by 36 percent over the previous year.

“We’re all — as individuals, as organizations and as a country — facing near constant security attacks from trusted insiders, malicious cybercriminals or nation-state actors,” said Christy Wyatt, CEO at Dtex Systems, as quoted by CNBC.

Despite that investment, the Dtex survey revealed that less than half of government employees are wary of emailing confidential data, ignoring or working around security protocols, or downloading files from websites they haven’t visited before. Meanwhile, only 43 percent said they had ever reported a colleague who showed risky behavior, even though 86 percent said they believe it is important to do so.

Government Contractors Fail to Address Cybersecurity Risks

It’s not just public sector employees that fail to take IT security seriously. Nearly half of the government contractors surveyed for a BitSight study earned a grade of “below C” in terms of how well they applied the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Protective Technology countermeasures. Some issues included the use of older browser versions with security vulnerabilities, insufficient email protection and network encryption that didn’t work as well as it should.

Shane Schick

Writer & Editor

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