Confidential information given to your HR department may not be confidential after all, as one in three IT staff admit to reading information stored on company systems.

Private details including employee’s private files, salary information and personal emails have been accessed according to a survey by Cyber-Ark Software.

More than 30% of those surveyed also said that slack security enabled them to access their company’s network after they had terminated their employment.

Experts at Cyber-Ark believe that most errors originate from poor password protection and employees are urged to regularly change their passwords.

Calum Macleod, European director at Cyber-Ark, said: “Gone are the days when you had to break into the filing cabinet in the personnel department to get at vital and highly confidential information. Now all you need is the administrative password and you can snoop around.”