Industry confidence in Cloud-based communication solutions has been rocked following Edward Snowden’s revelations about the scale of international data surveillance and high-profile data breaches, a survey reveals.
Despite the acknowledged economic benefits of outsourcing business functions to third party service providers, including reduced operational costs and streamlined processes, there is growing concern amongst IT professionals about the security of Cloud-based SaaS services and solutions – so much so that when selecting a new product or service, data security and information assurance are now regarded as being of equal importance to financial and efficiency gains.
The ‘2014: The Year of Encryption’ market survey examined the views of this year’s delegates at Europe’s largest information security event, Infosecurity Europe 2014. The majority of those surveyed acknowledged that Snowden had undermined users’ confidence in the perceived security of Cloud-based solutions, making them more aware of issues such as encryption, data residency and access control, and driving them to consider new information security systems.
In addition, those surveyed felt that the UK Government’s Certified Product Assurance (CPA) programme (led by CESG) is helping to simplify the procurement decision-making process, and with 83% of people saying their current system was either too complex or hard to use, new system ease of use was also regarded as crucial. Worryingly, 100% of those saying they were not interested in data security admitted to regularly sharing sensitive / confidential information with external third parties.
The key findings from the survey include:
– Nearly two-thirds say that Snowden’s revelations have made them more aware of data security issues, of which approximately 70% have been directly influenced to look at new data security systems
– One-in-two people now perceive the Cloud to be less secure as a result of Snowden, with 78% suggesting the story will influence future IT provisioning
– Worryingly, 100% of those not interested in security systems admitted to regularly sharing sensitive / confidential information with external third parties
– Over two-thirds of people felt that Government certification combined with ease of use would be deciding factors when selecting a data security solution
– One-third of those surveyed were not aware that upcoming reforms to the European Data Protection Act would impact the way they or their organisation handles and protects data
Survey conducted by Egress Software Technologies, providers of email and file encryption solutions. Read more findings from the survey.
About Egress Software Technologies
Egress Software Technologies is the leading provider of Cloud-based encryption software and services, offering innovative on-demand data security to enable organisations and individuals in the Public and Private Sectors to share confidential information with third parties.
As the first, and currently only, CESG CPA Foundation Grade certified email encryption product, Egress Switch Secure Email enables public and private sector customers to share highly sensitive information over the internet, without the need to manage external third party credentials. The award-winning Egress Switch portfolio of products also includes Switch Secure File Transfer, Switch Secure Web Form and the latest online collaboration offering, Switch Secure Workspace.
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