Companies are increasingly adopting encryption strategies, according to a new Thales report. More than four in ten (41 percent) of respondents in the report said their organization has an encryption strategy that is applied “consistently” across the enterprise.
Interestingly, for the first time since Thales started doing these reports (12 years), business unit leaders have a greater influence over these things than IT operations.
Figures
Looking at the numbers, the report finds that two-thirds (67 percent) use one of two routes: they either perform encryption in place or send data to the cloud (opens in a new tab)where it is encrypted using locally generated keys.
Nearly four out of ten (37 percent) said their companies delegate complete control of their keys and encryption processes to cloud service providers.
“The accelerated development of business encryption strategies underscores the spread of mega-intrusions and cyber attacks, as well as the need to protect an ever-expanding range of sensitive data types,” commented Dr. Larry Ponemon, president and founder of The Ponemon Institute.
“Simply put, the stakes are too high for organizations to stand by and wait for an attack before implementing an advanced data protection strategy. Encryption and key management continue to play a key role in these strategies. “
It’s also interesting that a third (31%) use or plan to use HSM (Hardware Security Modules) along with BYOK deployments (bring your own key). One-fifth (20 percent) said the same for CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) deployments. Utilization of both HSM and CASB is expected to double next year, from 12 percent to 24 percent.
