How security smart is Generation Y?

The generation gap has existed for –well — generations. But the current divide between twentysomethings and their elders in the IT workforce, at least according to some experts, goes beyond the older cohort simply shaking their heads and muttering, “Kids these days.” There is, they say, a security divide.

Andrew Avanessian, vice president of Global Professional Services at Avecto, writing for USA Today’s CyberTruth, called Millennials, also labeled Generation Y, “a new attack vector that is emanating from the inside.”

Avanessian cited a Cisco’s 2013 Annual Security Report that said while Gen Y workers bring enormous IT expertise and technical understanding to their jobs, they also tend to ignore IT policies, demand freedom of access, shrug off a lack of privacy and are used to mixing their personal and professional lives, all of which can lead to cyber intrusions.

As Cisco put it, “Security risks rise in businesses because many employees adopt ‘my way’ work lifestyles in which their devices, work and online behavior mix with their personal lives virtually anywhere — in the office, at home and everywhere in between.”

SOURCE: itnews.com