IMPROPERLY STORED DATA POSES CORPORATE RISK, REPORT SAYS

Dec 1, 2005 12:00 PM

Fifty-four percent of more than 300 companies responding to a recent survey have no documented procedures for protecting stored data, and 70 percent of executives rated their company's data storage security as only fair or poor.

The findings in the 2005 Data Storage Security Survey conducted by independent storage consulting and services company GlassHouse Technologies, were based on responses from executives in 16 industries including government, telecommunications, technology, energy, financial services, aerospace and health care.

The survey gauged companies' awareness of legal and financial threats posed by improperly secured stored data. The survey revealed that many companies have a tenuous grip on data storage security issues, and in some cases are proceeding on wrong assumptions. Among the survey's findings:

• 61 percent of survey respondents believe external threats are more dangerous than internal threats, even though internal users have greater access to sensitive data;

• 85 percent do not encrypt their backup data, despite highly publicized recent cases of backup tapes being stolen and lost; and

• 50 percent said the company's intellectual property was their greatest concern even though there are greater legal consequences for mishandling customers' personal information.

At the strategic level, however, executives demonstrated a solid grasp of the storage data security issues; 80 percent identified either regulatory compliance or loss of public trust as the worst consequences of data theft.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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