Is Your Information at Risk?

Sophos Encryption survey of IT professionals shows ongoing security challenges as businesses fail to take full advantage of encryption technology

Sophos has revealed the findings of its recent survey, The State of Encryption Today. The survey polled 1,700 IT decision makers from mid-sized businesses in the United States, Canada, India, Australia, Japan and Malaysia, about their encryption habits, concerns and plans.

Key findings of the survey reveal that private, highly-sensitive employee information, including banking details, human resource (HR) files and personal healthcare records, is at risk. While many companies take the security of their customer data seriously, employees are not protected to the same level.

Company data remains at risk as well. Nearly one-third (30 percent) of all organizations surveyed fail to always encrypt their own corporate financial information, and nearly half (41 percent) inconsistently encrypt files containing valuable intellectual property. The percentage is higher in the U.S. where 62 percent of organizations cite the need to secure proprietary data as a key driver to encryption.

Cloud data security is also driving encryption adoption. “Data breaches happen to large and small companies every day, and the last line of defense against that breach turning into a corporate crisis is a comprehensive data encryption policy,” commented Dan Schiappa, SVP and GM of Enduser Security at Sophos. “While it is the customer data breaches that hit the headlines, companies have the same obligation to protect sensitive employee data, and they should not overlook it.”