A survey from Lieberman Software Corporation reveals that more than 80% of IT security professionals believe that corporate employees deliberately ignore security rules issued by the IT department.

The survey, which looked at the attitudes of nearly 250 IT security professionals, also discovered that more than half of those who think that workers deliberately ignore IT security directives do not believe end-users would listen more even if these mandates were issued by executive management.

These findings are despite the fact that more IT security professionals and vendors are insisting that in order to improve IT security within organizations, strategic guidance must be issued from the board level.

Commenting on the research, Philip Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software, said: “These figures highlight the fact that most end-users are still not taking IT security seriously and are unnecessarily putting corporate data – and potentially customer information – at risk. And these behaviors are continuing even after it has been proven that human error is the leading cause of data breaches. Organizations need to implement better cyber security training that properly instructs staff about the consequences of data breaches.

The survey was conducted in February at RSA Conference 2013 in San Francisco.

For more information on the survey, see www.liebsoft.com/2013_information_security_survey.