Over three quarters of UK workers (77%) said that they have never received any form of cyber skills training from their employer, according to a new study from a provider of cloud-ready Zero Trust Privilege to secure modern enterprises.

Centrify surveyed 2,000 full-time professional services workers in the UK and also found that 69% of those polledsaid they lacked confidence in their ownability to keep their data safe and secure.

The report was published at the start of European Union’s CyberSecMonth, designed to raise awareness of cybersecurity threats, promote cybersecurity among citizens and organisations. It is also there to provide resources to protect themselves online, through education and sharing of good practices.

Meanwhile, 27% of respondents admitted to using the same password across multiple accounts, whilst 14% said they keep passwords recorded in unsecured notebooks.

“Ignorance of the law is no defence,”said Donal Blaney, cyber-law expert, GriffinLaw said: “Company directors and business owners owe it to themselves, their staff, their shareholders, and their customers to know how to protect their businesses and their customers’ data. They will only have themselves to blame if this blows up in their face one day.”

Andy Heather, vice president, Centrify added: “In an age where cyber-attacks have emerged as one of the most ruthless and successful forms of crime that can be committed against a business on a large scale, it is astounding to hear that so many UK companies neglect to instil even the most basic cybersecurity measures in their employees. Tackling this issue requires urgent investment in cyber skills training and adopting a zero-trust approach, to further reduce the risk of weak passwords leaving easy entry points and to ensure malicious parties cannot run riot in company systems with stolen log-in credentials."