By Gemma Simpson, 3 December 2007 12:21
NEWS
Fewer than half of UK companies use encryption technology to secure their data.
Despite the lack of encryption, UK IT managers claim their corporate data is safe and almost two-thirds (65 per cent) said the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) data breach will not change their IT spending priorities, according to a survey by Check Point.
Security from A to Z
Click on the links below to find out more...
A is for Antivirus
B is for Botnets
C is for CMA
D is for DDoS
E is for Extradition
F is for Federated identity
G is for Google
H is for Hackers
I is for IM
J is for Jaschan (Sven)
K is for Kids
L is for Love Bug
M is for Microsoft
N is for Neologisms
O is for Orange
P is for Passwords
Q is for Questions
R is for Rootkits
S is for Spyware
T is for Two-factor authentication
U is for USB sticks/devices
V is for Virus variants
W is for Wi-fi
X is for OS X
Y is for You
Z is for Zero-day
Only 48 per cent of those surveyed have deployed encryption within their organisations and a further 12 per cent did not even know if encryption was in place at all.
The survey also revealed 85 per cent of IT managers support the mandatory notification of affected parties in the event of a data breach, something which the silicon.com Full Disclosure campaign is calling for.
More than one-third (36 per cent) of respondents thought immediate dismissal was appropriate for parties causing data leaks on the scale of the recent HMRC loss, according to the survey of 140 senior IT staff in UK public and private companies.
Two password-protected CDs containing information from the child benefit database were sent unrecorded and unregistered by a junior HMRC official through courier TNT to the National Audit Office on 18 October but never arrived and have not been found.
Comments
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1. Karen Challinor
why should UK business invest in encryption
any official with a badge can walk through the door and demand the encryption keys thanks to the RIP act
and as we've seen with HMRC and the pensions office and .... oh just about every other government department once it's in the hands of official bodies it may as well be published in a newspaper for all the security it's got
2. Richard
I don't encrypt:
Because, unless I wrote down the key;
I'd be far more likely to lose the key than to lose the data.
So, I use other methods to keep the data safe.