Secure USB Drive

A new data security survey has been released, polling the opinions of nearly 1000 IT professionals on their data security practices and habits.

At first reading, it looked to be following the same approach as many previous surveys, pointing the finger of blame at users for causing security breaches by copying confidential company data to USB flash drives. 

As we have discussed on this blog before, it’s all too easy to blame users, when the company should share equal blame for not helping to make security easy for individuals – for example by deploying secure pen drives to all users.

However, on reading further, the survey takes a more balanced view.  57% of the survey sample blamed their companies for ineffective data security policies, and 58% said they were not provided with enough data-security-related training. 

It’s good to see signs that the awareness of the true causes of data losses is growing.  Securing against leaks needs a combination of policies, and products to enforce them.  As we have said before, the sooner we can stop the blame game and work together to improve security, the better.