Would your employees sell out?

According to a new survey of 600 people, one third of employees would sell company secrets for compensation. The amount of compensation needed varied based on who was spoken to. This survey was done by the same people who famously got usernames and passwords from people in exchange for a chocolate bar last year.

Researches offered workers and escallating range of theoretical bribes ranging from a good meal to 1.5 million dollars. more than one third of respondants said they could be bribed. The theoretical bribes were put into every day terms. For example, ten percent said they would do it if their mortgage were paid off. Five percent would do it for a vacation or a new job. Four percent would sell out their employers data if their credit cards were paid off. The scary, bitter and sardonic group of two percent said they do it for a good meal. Two thirds of those that were willing to sell out said they needed 1.5 million dollars to do it.

From a company perspective, these are employees with real access to information you normally prize including:

– 83 percent have access to customer databases
– 72 percent have access to business plans
– 53 percent can get into accounting systems
– 37 percent have IT administrative passwords

The vast majority (about two thirds) said it would be “easy” to get this information out of the organization. Eighty eight percent of them think that the information they have access to is valuable.

The respondents said they felt less secure in their jobs and had less loyalty to the employers than they did a year ago.

For those that had access to customer information such as credit or debit card information, most said they were less likely to sell that, and 4 out of 5 flat out refused at any price. For the 20 percent that were willing to do it, the price was far higher than other types of data.