Think about what happens when IT discovers an infection lurking on the network. No employee wants to think that the problem originated in their own department, or worse their own system. Accusations and rumors naturally tend to start flying as IT searches for the culprit.

This begs the question: Which department poses the biggest security risk to the organization as a whole? Is it marketing? Design? Finance?

Recently, researchers tackled this question head on. 46 percent of respondents indicated that finance posed a threat to their company. 39 percent believed that HR was a threat. Reasons ranged from concerns about negligence, such as accidentally sending sensitive information to the wrong person on an email list, to concerns about accidentally clicking on malware. 33 percent believed that the biggest threat came  from middle management.

Perhaps the most important statistic in the study—besides the one about how 88 percent of companies had dealt with a security incident in the last year—pertains to the 54 percent of people in the workforce who are in a position that can cause a security breach. It’s important to realize that anyone in your organization with computer access is capable of causing a security concern. No department is impervious to the multitude of online threats.

After all, malware can come from a variety of angles. All an employee has to do is click on an infected advertisement from what looks like a clean website, and his or her machine could become infected with malware. Or, an employee could succumb to an email phishing attack believing it to originate from someone inside of the organization.

So while it’s true that some departments may pose a bigger risk than others due to the volume of sensitive information that they handle on a daily basis, every department is ultimately at risk. It’s therefore every employee’s responsibility to  use the utmost caution when browsing the Internet. To a hacker, every employee—regardless of their title—is a potential backdoor into your network.

Click here to learn more about how Apex Technology Services can help keep your network safe.