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Origin Storage: Encryption survey shows the message about the need to encrypt mobile data still has some way to go
July 2010 by Origin Storage
Origin Storage, the storage systems integration specialist, says that the results of a recent survey - carried out by Freeform Dynamics and published this week on The Register newswire - highlights the rising levels of sophistication amongst an increasingly tech-savvy computer user base.
The results of the survey, says Andy Cordial, Origin’s managing director, "confirm what we’re hearing our clients, both in the SME, as well as in corporate-land."
"The fact that around 55 per cent of the survey’s respondents said the main driver pushing them to encrypt their data was regulatory, with around 35 per cent saying an increasingly mobile workforce is the reason, indicates the changing IT landscape we are all experiencing," he said.
"And no more is this so when you realise that 24 per cent of respondents said they were encrypting their data as the result of a security breach," he added.
According to Cordial, one of the most interesting aspects of the survey is the response to the question `In an ideal world, which of the following should be encrypted,’ in which around 50 per cent of people said that notebooks AND desktops should - ideally - be protected in a remote branch environment.
That percentile rose to around 70 per cent when desktops and notebooks in a home environment were involved.
"Whilst you would expect the 80 per cent-plus saying that notebooks on their own should be encrypted, the fact that so many of the 383 people surveyed were clearly aware of the need to encrypt - and on a desktop PC - is a powerful reflection that the security message about encryption is finally getting through to a sizeable audience," he said.
"This is excellent news, and confirms the comments from the large numbers of professionals that visited our stand at the Infosecurity Europe show in London this spring, where we launched our laptop encrypted drive kits, which contain everything a user needs to migrate his/her data to an encrypted drive on their notebook," he added.
Cordial went on to say that the Freeform Dynamics report also made the interesting observation that the difference between the ideal world and reality - as reported by the survey respondents - is still quite large one, indicating that there is still some way to go before the message about encryption reaches a majority audience.
The obvious message here, he explained, is that, whilst IT professionals are aware of the need for encryption on both desktop and portable devices, it still has not permeated out into management of companies, as well as their staff.
This is especially true, he says, when you realise that the bulk of the respondents to the survey are probably a vociferous large minority of the IT user base on the Internet, meaning that a lot of Internet users are probably blissfully unaware of the real need.
"It also saddens me to see that more than 20 per cent of survey respondents cited cost as a factor stopping them from encrypting the data held on the notebook of mobile workers," he said.
"Add in the fact that around 33 per cent said they thought there were practical issues with encrypting data on notebooks and it’s clear that the message on Origin’s solutions, which are designed to greatly simplify the encryption of data on laptops - as well as on portable media generally - has still a long way to go before it gets through," he added.
"The good news is that the responses we are seeing from our customers, dealers and systems integrators, is that the message about our no-nonsense approach to encryption IS getting through, and that’s no bad thing."
