Companies discover encryption

A recent B2B International survey has revealed that encryption is the fifth most widespread protection technique, with many companies using it as the final defence barrier, even after a hacker has broken into the network.

It’s a sharp rise from the results of a similar survey in 2011 where it barely crept into the top 10. It is also ranked second among the security measures, which companies want to develop, with only protection against malware scoring higher. However, encryptions systems are notably absent from the top five most effective protection measures implemented by companies this year.

In effect, encryption is the final defensive barrier – even after a criminal has successfully forced his way into the company’s IT infrastructure, this last hurdle makes it extremely difficult to get access to important information. However most companies have not fully introduced encryption yet – just one-third of specialists (36%) use full disk encryption (also known as encryption of information arrays) and less than half of those specialists (44%) actually protect only critical information by this technology. As to encryption on external devices, e.g. USB drives: it is used by 32%.

The reasoning can be explained by difficulties companies are facing when implementing Data Protection systems – 34% of respondents consider them as too complex. ‚”Encryption incorporated into a comprehensive security system for corporate IT infrastructure can be an effective way out, – says Nikolay Grebennikov, Chief Technology Officer at Kaspersky Lab. Our business solutions can provide flexibility and easily managed protection for all corporate network endpoints.‚”

The survey involved over 3,300 IT specialists in 22 countries worldwide and was conducted in conjunction with Kaspersky Lab. The participants represented all business sizes: small, medium and enterprise.

The full version of the report of the results of the survey by B2B International in July 2012 is available athttp://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/pdf/kaspersky_global_it-security-risks-survey_report_eng_final.pdf

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