Right here from the exhibit floor at VMWorld we took a short three question survey of 57 conference attendees and the results are shocking.
We recently posted that virtualization was creeping onto mission-critical servers, which use to be kept on physical servers for security reasons. This survey shows even further penetration than we may have believed, with almost everyone having at least some sensitive servers virtualized.
So you have (a)sensitive servers in a virtualized environment (b) staff that would steal data for money and (c) staff that CAN steal data and the problem is incredibly clear.
Here's the complete survey results, including plenty of humorous findings in the final question:
Has your company virtualized mission critical servers?
If one of your colleagues wanted to steal sensitive information from a mission-critical virtual server in the company, do you think they could?
What do you think your colleagues would be willing to do to get their hands on twenty million dollars?
- 44% of attendees said their colleagues could steal sensitive information from mission critical servers if they wanted to and another third of respondents said their colleagues "might" be able to
- 37% of attendees say "most" of their mission-critical servers are virtualized and 61% said at least some were.
- When asked what their colleagues would do for $20 million:
35% would lose their job and leave the country
35% would leak information to a competitor
The most popular answer was 40% of attendees believe their colleagues would wear a tutu for $20 million (we believe this number is underreported)
We recently posted that virtualization was creeping onto mission-critical servers, which use to be kept on physical servers for security reasons. This survey shows even further penetration than we may have believed, with almost everyone having at least some sensitive servers virtualized.
So you have (a)sensitive servers in a virtualized environment (b) staff that would steal data for money and (c) staff that CAN steal data and the problem is incredibly clear.
Here's the complete survey results, including plenty of humorous findings in the final question:
Has your company virtualized mission critical servers?
- Most of them: 21 (37%)
- Some: 32 (56%)
- None: 4 (7%)
If one of your colleagues wanted to steal sensitive information from a mission-critical virtual server in the company, do you think they could?
- Yes: 28 (49%)
- Maybe: 14 (25%)
- No: 15 (26%)
What do you think your colleagues would be willing to do to get their hands on twenty million dollars?
- Kill someone: 10 (17%)
- Chop off their own arm: 9 (15%)
- Jump into a water tank with a shark: 10 (17%)
- Lose their job and leave the country: 20 (35%)
- Leak information to a competitor: 20 (35%)
- Wear a tutu: 23 (40%)
- Steal data: 12 (21%)
Scott Lang, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at BeyondTrust
Scott Lang has nearly 20 years of experience in technology product marketing, currently guiding the product marketing strategy for BeyondTrust’s privileged account management solutions and vulnerability management solutions. Prior to joining BeyondTrust, Scott was director of security solution marketing at Dell, formerly Quest Software, where he was responsible for global security campaigns, product marketing for identity and access management and Windows server management.