New InformationWeek Reports Research Finds 21% of IT Pros Think Their Encryption Initiatives Are Falling Behind Peers'

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- InformationWeek Reports (www.reports.informationweek.com), a service provider for peer-based IT research and analysis, announced the release of its latest research report. Data Encryption: Ushering In a New Era encompasses analysis of results from InformationWeek's recent 2012 data encryption survey and guides readers in choosing and deploying encryption to support a data-centric security policy. More than 500 business technology professionals responded to this poll.

Research Summary:

As longstanding protocols come under attack and sensitive data moves to mobile devices and offsite cloud providers' systems, encryption adoption is growing, albeit modestly. In our 2012 survey, 91% of respondents are using some encryption vs. 86% in our July 2009 poll.

Findings: 

• 67% of our survey respondents encrypt Social Security numbers.
• 49% currently use mobile device encryption for smartphones and tablets.
• 33% have implemented encryption at the database level.
• 19% categorize their encryption use as pervasive, with widespread use across the enterprise.

The report author, Michael A. Davis, serves as CEO of Chicago-based technology and security consultancy Savid Technologies.

For full access to the research data, members can download now: http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/21/8628/Security/research-data-encryption.html

"Despite media attention, Zappos actually is a poster child for proper encryption of credit card data," says report author Michael A. Davis. "They tokenized the data, so nothing was actually breached. The last four digits of a credit card are useless to an attacker. And, Zappos obfuscated passwords. In contrast, only 52% of respondents encrypt credit card numbers, and 35% encrypt data archived on tape."

For more information:
Art Wittmann    
VP & Managing Director, InformationWeek Reports
415-947-6361
awittmann@techweb.com

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