Many tech senior decision-makers don’t understand encryption

Nearly a quarter of tech senior decision-makers in the UK don’t fully understand encryption, according to PKWARE.

This number increases to 40% in the retail sector and half in the healthcare sector. Overall, only 50% of respondents said they encrypt their customer data.

“It’s hard to believe how many companies are still scraping by with such lax security when handling their customers’ valuable data. Just being compliant with basic security regulations isn’t enough anymore. As demonstrated by numerous high profile cyber-attacks, organisations need to encrypt their data and have foolproof security measures in place,” said Miller Newton, CEO of PKWARE.

Additionally, the survey revealed that 40% of UK tech senior decision-makers agree with the Investigatory Powers Bill, which would allow the government to bypass encryption. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of what encryption is and why it should be used.

Additional findings from the survey include:

• Less than half of all tech decision-makers train their staff in security measures.
• Only 40% of companies implement a clean desk policy – a move which doesn’t require any investment.
• Only 35% of tech decision-makers think their staff definitely knows enough about data security and encryption to avoid a cyber-attack.