UK companies spurn encryption

Fewer than half of UK companies use encryption technology to secure their data, according to a survey.

Despite the lack of encryption, UK IT managers claim their corporate data is safe and almost two-thirds (65 percent) said the data breach at HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will not change their IT spending priorities, according to a survey of 140 senior IT staff in UK public and private companies by security software specialist Check Point.

Only 48 percent of those surveyed have deployed encryption within their organisations and a further 12 percent did not even know if encryption was in place at all.

The survey also revealed 85 percent of IT managers support the mandatory notification of affected parties in the event of a data breach.

More than one-third (36 percent) of respondents thought immediate dismissal was appropriate for parties causing data leaks on the scale of the recent HMRC loss.

Two password-protected CDs containing information from the child-benefit database were sent unrecorded and unregistered by a junior HMRC official through courier TNT to the National Audit Office on 18 October but never arrived and have not yet been found.