New research from IDC and security vendor RSA, that included 400 top level executives, revealed that organisations are more likely to suffer from accidental data security leaks than malicious insider attacks.

The research shows that the accidental data leaks often cause more damage than insider attacks; giving reason to doubt the traditional assumption that theft is the highest cause. Most security leaks are accidents that occur simply when employees do not follow correct security protocol or misuse information accidentally.

The firms that participated in the poll reported that accidental data loss accounted for 6,244 of incidents; unauthorized people receiving privileged access to data resulted in 5.794 incidents of risk, and malware attacks that came from within the firms accounted for 5,830 incidents.