Encryption alone is not enough

IT departments today are faced with a proverbial ‘perfect storm’ when it comes to data security.

With operating budgets being reduced, departments are expected to do more with less.  Conversely, the government wants to increase the regulation of data security, as demonstrated by the UK Ministry of Justice’s recent announcement that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has the power to fine organisations up to UK£500,000 for serious data breaches.

There is also growing mobility throughout the workforce, and as a result, over 3500 laptops go missing every week in European airports, according to the Ponemon Institute. That’s one laptop every three minutes. This means corporations must establish processes to ensure data integrity, or face significant financial and reputational repercussions. According to the ‘Cost of a Data Breach Report’, Ponemon Institute, January 2009, the average cost of a data breach to an organisation in the UK is UK£1.7 million.

Encryption alone is not enough. According to a report by the Ponemon Institute (‘The Human Factor in Laptop Encryption’, Ponemon Institute and Absolute Software, March 2010 - www.absolute.com/human-factor) 53 percent of non-IT business managers had disengaged encryption technology on their business hardware. This was despite the fact that 61 percent of laptop thefts in the UK have resulted in a data breach.

Even if your business has encryption technology, employees can’t be relied upon to use it, and how do you secure data that you cannot track? Success lies in having a layered approach to security that enables IT to track data and provide options to access the data if a laptop goes missing. Only then will you be confident that if a laptop is stolen, data can at least be deleted remotely and, in the best-case scenario, the laptop can be brought safely home.

For more information log onto www.absolute.com