Younger workers also are more likely to store corporate data on personal devices. According to Symantec, "Common channels are personal PCs (39 per cent vs. 24 per cent), USB drives (38 per cent vs. 14 per cent), personal hard drives (20 per cent vs. 13 per cent) and smart phones (13 per cent vs. 6 per cent)."

These results put IT managers in the hot seat, Kapuria's blog suggests, because they admitted that corporate risk has increased during the past five years. Eighty-nine per cent of IT managers said risk has increased in the past five years, with close to half saying they "feel younger workers pose a moderate-to-significant new challenge." Twelve per cent said they believe Millennials to be more "risk savvy."

Although 57 per cent of both employee groups feel they have been trained in their company's policy, 50 per cent of the IT respondents said they have policies banning social networking, music, streaming video and gaming applications. Three-quarters of the IT workers polled have guidelines in place that restrict corporate data and information being downloaded to personal devices, and 85 per cent have policies that forbid downloading or installing software on work PCs for personal use, the survey found.

This disconnect between policies and practices caused more than two-thirds of corporate IT-manager respondents to consider restricting the use of Web 2.0 technologies and smart devices. Yet 54 per cent of IT decision-makers polled said they have seen some benefit from the use of Web 2.0 technologies and smart devices among their employees, Symantec reports.

To balance the risks and rewards of such technologies, more than one-third of IT respondents have written new polices and enforce them; and 28 per cent have relaxed guidelines to allow for more access to varied applications and devices. Close to two-thirds of the IT managers polled said they monitor employees' online activity to track whether they are following policies. And 36 per cent admitted they had not altered policies in the past five years.

"Clearly, the study reveals there is potential for huge risk exposure -- data loss, compliance issues, legal implications" and more, Kapuria wrote in the Symantec Weblog posting.