Australian organisations 'forward looking' on encryption

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 09:55

Your IT - Home IT

Despite the absence of mandatory data breach reporting, a high proportion of Australian businesses are concerned about the reputational damage that could result from such a breach.

A survey of Australian information security professionals carried out by The Ponemon Institute for PGP found that 67 percent of the 405 respondents say the leading business driver for encryption was the need to protect their organisation's brand and reputation.

31 percent of the respondents described themselves as managers, 30 percent as staff or technicians, 25 percent as directors, and 2 percent as senior directors or vice presidents. On average, they had more than eight years experience in information security.

PGP CEO Phil Dunkelberger said the report shows Australia to be forward looking in comparison with other countries.

The survey also found suggestions that the lack of an encryption strategy is associated with higher numbers of breaches during the preceding 12 months, though the relationship was not statistically significant.

None of the organisation with an enterprise encryption strategy reported more than one breach, and all of those reporting more than five breaches said they had no encryption strategy.

Australian organisations are most likely to encrypt backups (31 percent said backups were encrypted most of the time), followed by mobile data (20 percent), file servers and email (seven percent each).