Can employees be trusted to use their company laptops properly? Not really

To discover how many employees are misusing company tech, 1,000 workers were surveyed and asked about their behaviors on company-issued devices. The trend is alarming.

On the surface, it’s quite obvious: company data is less secure when it’s mixed with the personal lives of employees, and not physically being in office gives employers less opportunity to oversee productivity and device use than ever before.

That’s why employers need to make sure their workers are using their company-issued tech as intended and not as personal machines. But they aren’t, apparently.

Side hustles, adult sites, and streaming

The team at All About Cookies found, for example, that one in five employees transfers company IP to personal devices. This is obviously a bad practice that has legal implications and can lead to major data breaches.

Besides, 39% don’t update software regularly, and 21% download unauthorized software, leaving work laptops and phones vulnerable to potential cyber threats.

Twenty-two percent also admit to visiting adult websites on company-issued tech, where visitors more often than not expose themselves to viruses and other malware.

A third of employees admit to using company tech to apply for jobs, interview, or do work for other companies while on the clock. Thirty-six percent said they use company tech to work on side hustles to make extra money.

That’s just not right, researchers say: “When it comes to unauthorized use of company tech, using your device to make money for someone else is roughly the equivalent of cheating on your partner.”

Staggeringly, 22% of employees admit they’ve used one company’s devices to actually work for another company.

The cat-and-mouse game between employers wanting full-time engagement vs employees who want to slack off or do something personal is nothing new. But it seems to be getting worse in the modern workplace.

Staggeringly, 22% of employees admit they’ve used one company’s devices to actually work for another company.

Forty-seven percent of employees additionally report streaming movies or TV shows on their company-issued devices, including 27% who do so on a weekly basis, according to All About Cookies.

Giving guidance on usage is important

Whether it’s repeating passwords or accessing unsafe public WiFi networks, it’s not exactly a secret that most internet users ignore best cybersecurity practices for convenience. However, with company tech, the consequences can be even more disastrous.

According to respondents, many workers are willing to regularly put the physical and cyber security of their company-issued devices at risk.

"There’s such a blurry line between home and work life when you’re not working in an office, that it’s almost inevitable employees will use their work tech for personal reasons,” said All About Cookies’ director of digital PR, Chris Lewis.

“The most common offenses were innocuous, like occasional online shopping or social media use, but more employees than you’d think were using company tech for egregious time-stealing.”

Sure, employers can often overlook giving guidance on company tech usage because they think it’s common knowledge, Lewis said.

In prior decades, it was a big deal if your employer was giving you a laptop to take home, so employees took it seriously.

“Today, it’s commonplace, and with that widespread adoption, its seriousness from both sides has degraded. From an employer's perspective, there must be clear lines set about appropriate vs inappropriate tech use, on and off the clock (if they’re on company devices),” said Lewis.