Absolute and Ponemon Institute Study Shows Many Employees Undermine Traditional Data Breach Prevention Strategies
From the press release:
Absolute(R) Software Corporation and the Ponemon Institute today announced the findings of a new study on the use of encryption on laptops by employees within corporations in the U.S. The study, “The Human Factor in Laptop Encryption: US Study,” revealed that more than half (56%) of business (non-IT) managers polled, disable the encryption solution on their laptops. Ninety-two percent of IT security practitioners report that someone in their organization has had a laptop lost or stolen and 71% report that it resulted in a data breach. Results indicate that it is employee behavior that undermines data protection efforts in corporate America. Companion studies of UK and Canadian companies are also available.
[…]“The Human Factor in Laptop Encryption: U.S. Study” key findings include:
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- 92% of IT security practitioners report that someone in organization has had a laptop lost or stolen and 71% report that it resulted in a data breach;
- 56% of business managers have disengaged their laptop’s encryption;
- Only 45% of IT security practitioners report that their organization was able to prove the contents of missing laptops were encrypted;
- Only 52% of business managers – employees most likely to have access to the most sensitive data (personally identifiable information and/or intellectual property) – have employer-provided encryption;
- 57% of business managers either keep a written record of their encryption password, or share it with others in case they forget it;
- 61% of business managers share their passwords, compared to only 4% of IT managers; and,
- Business managers are much more likely than IT security practitioners to believe encryption makes it unnecessary to use other security measures for laptop protection.
Highlights and the complete reports for “The Human Factor in Laptop Encryption” studies for the U.S., U.K. and Canada can be found at: www.absolute.com/humanfactor.
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