Almost half of UK organizations now encrypt all data
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- Published: Tuesday, 05 July 2022 08:18
The number of UK organizations implementing data encryption as a core part of their cyber resilience strategy has continued to rise, with 32 percent introducing a policy to encrypt all corporate information as standard in the last year. In total, almost half (47 percent) of organizations now require the encryption of all data, whether it’s at rest or in transit. This is according to an annual survey of IT decision makers carried out by Apricorn.
32 percent of organizations encrypt all data when it’s stored on their systems or in the cloud. Only 2 percent do not currently see encryption as a priority.
The stakes are getting higher for those organizations that don’t give the approach sufficient attention: 16 percent of the IT leaders surveyed admitted that a lack of encryption had been the main cause of a data breach within their company, up from 12 percent in 2021.
When asked about the main reason their organization has increased the implementation of encryption over the past year, nearly a quarter (24 percent) of respondents said this was due to the rise in remote working, with 16 percent citing the rise in ransomware attacks.
Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of organizations now have a policy that requires the encryption of all data held on removable media, such as external hard drives and USBs. 27 percent actively enforce the encryption of data on mobile devices and removable media. 42 percent only allow the use of removable storage devices if the data is hardware encrypted – up from 33 percent last year.
The proportion of organizations dealing with the risk to data held on removable media by physically blocking their use has dropped from 13 percent in 2021 to just 8 percent this year.
About the survey
The research was conducted during April 2022, by Vanson Bourne. Respondents were 100 UK IT decision makers (CIOs, Heads of IT, IT directors, Senior IT managers etc.) from enterprise organizations (1000+ employees) including financial services, IT, manufacturing, business and professional services. All interviews were conducted using a rigorous multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate.
