A survey of 335 network and system administrators showed that while mosy are generally satisfied with the level of security at their organizations, some lose sleep worrying about the risks posed by employees.
More than 70 percent of survey respondents expressed satisfaction with the current security of desktop PCs, remote access technology, and data centers/servers in their organizations.
But those who said security worries keep them awake at night cited employees as the culprits, according to the survey, which was conducted by Amplitude Research for VanDyke Software.
In that group, 40 percent said users' failure to adhere to company security policies was their top concern, followed by insufficent training time or budget at 28 percent. A lack of mandate from top management to make security a priority was cited by 23 percent.
"The human element continues to be the primary cause for concern to network administrators," said Jeff VanDyke, presidnet of VanDyke Software.
The survey also showed that administrators who work for larger organizations - ones with more than 20,000 employees - are less comfortable using technology to monitor employees' internet usage than those who work for companies with 100 to 5,000 employees.
According to a study released by the U.S. Secret Service and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute's CERT, most insider attacks are planned well in advance by former employees intent on revenge, as SC Magazine reported earlier this month.