Most security breaches by insiders are unintentional. They come from employees who make ill-advised or uninformed choices regarding storage of their passwords, the Web sites they visit, and the E-mails they send. The Computing Technology Industry Association's annual survey on IT Security and the Workforce trends, to be published in March, indicates that nearly 80% of corporate security breaches are caused by computer-user error.

One in four outbound E-mails poses a legal, financial, or regulatory risk to the sending company, according to a 2005 survey conducted by Forrester Research and messaging security software maker Proofpoint Inc. of 332 IT executives and managers. Companies expect insider risks to grow, and nearly half of survey respondents plan to deploy technology to monitor Web mail or instant messaging to combat these threats.

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