New research from Check Point has found that just 27% of businesses are using encryption to protect their data, despite an increase in the number of remote workers.
The survey discovered that over 40% of businesses now have more remote workers connecting to the corporate network from home or when travelling than they did during 2008. The vast majority (77%) of respondents said that up to a quarter of their total workforce is made up of regular remote workers.
In addition to the 27% who use hard disk encryption to protect sensitive data on corporate endpoints, just 9% said that they use encryption for removable storage devices, such as USB flash drives.
“With less than 30% of businesses saying they use data encryption, the majority of corporations are left dangerously exposed to the risk of a serious data breach,” said Juliette Sultan, head of global marketing at Check Point.
Desktop antivirus (90%), antispyware (56%), personal firewalls (49%) and VPN clients (49%) are the most popular security systems in place at the companies quizzed for the survey. Nearly half (47%) said that they planned to introduce an endpoint security platform within the next year.
The survey spoke to 224 IT and security administrators across a wide range of businesses, including the finance sector, manufacturing and local or national government bodies. Respondents also came from companies ranging from up to 99 employees (23%) to over 5,000 (15%).
