Dive Brief:

• Millennials pose the greatest risk to enterprise security because of tendencies to circumvent IT security policies and use unapproved apps in the workplace, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute and Citrix.
• The global study of more than 4,000 IT, security and business professionals found that more than half of respondents believe millennials put the enterprise at risk because they bring different standards for information sharing and collaboration to the workplace.
• Meanwhile, baby boomers are believed to be the most susceptible to phishing and social engineering scams.

Dive Insight:

A number of recent studies indicate that employees are indeed the weak link when it comes to enterprise cybersecurity. But the Citrix/Ponemon survey puts some numbers behind which age groups are believed to be the most likely to open the enterprise up to different types of threats.

Many millenials use devices at work as they would in their personal lives. For them, security often takes a back seat to functionality.

To bolster enterprise security, educating employees about good security practices — no matter which age group they belong to — is a vital component of a good defense strategy.