Internal Incidents Cause About A Fifth Of Breaches; Many Are Intentional

Insider risk is an ongoing concern for organizations today. Common consequences include fraud, privacy abuses, intellectual property theft, and infrastructure damage. According to security decision-makers in Forrester’s Security Survey, 2025 who experienced a breach in the past 12 months, 22% of breaches with a known cause resulted from an internal incident. Thirty-two percent who experienced an internal incident described it as accidental, but 47% blamed malicious intent and 21% noted both inadvertent misuse and malicious intent. This data snapshot underscores the importance of carefully building insider risk management programs that account for employee privacy and due process.