Companies are being urged to use data encryption methods to protect all of their data. According to a recent eWeek survey, 90 per cent of companies use encryption techniques for data security, although many organisations only encrypt certain data if legally required.
The report also said enterprises are increasingly using
data encryption along with traditional firewalls and other security defence.
Security expert John Heimerl said firms shouldn’t over complicate the matter. He added: “Even hard drive encryption and database encryption can go a long way to protect data.”
Meanwhile, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) senior staff technologist Seth Schoen said full disk encryption was ‘essential’.
“Don't put off taking security steps that can help protect your private data,” he urged IT professionals. “Full disk encryption uses mathematical techniques to scramble data so it is unintelligible without the right key. Without encryption, forensic software can easily be used to bypass an account password and read all the files on your computer.”
Security firm iStorage also carried out a survey, interviewing 500 tech workers. More than a third admitted to losing USB drives and portable devices which contained unencrypted data, with over half saying they transported data without encrypting it first.