One in Six Enterprises Impacted by Data Loss

According to the latest Symantec-IDC report, nearly one out of every

six Indian enterprises is impacted by critical issues of data loss. The

report titled "Risk of data loss in Indian enterprises,

respondents (which include CIOs/ CTO/ IT Head and IT Manager from

verticals such as BFSI, Media & Entertainment, IT/ITeS, and

Telecom) were not clear about how data loss prevention (DLP) can help

them in safeguarding revenue and reputation. Interestingly to note is

that more than 50% of data is highly sensitive in enterprises, where

majority of data is in the form of source code, intellectual property,

employee and customer accounts.






Downturn
a Key Concern




According to the survey, 59% of employees carried confidential data
when they left the organization and moved to another one. The study

also revealed that 79% of respondents ranked data loss as the highest

information security being their main concern followed by concerns such

as denial of services, compliance, spam, virus attacks, and

unauthorized access.Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Symantec India

and SAARC, “There is so much of volume of data. But what data

do you really want to protect”. According to Dhupar, data

loss or threats is not because of external hackers but mainly because

of internal employees who have the tendency to leak information. He

also believed that the recent downturn was also one of the major

reasons for growth of data loss and threats in enterprises. According

to him, downturn can cause people (mainly who have been laid off) to

leak information or sent out confidential data outside an organization

which is more dangerous than a hacker outside the organization.






Contributing
Trends




So what kind of trends are contributing to these factors? First and
foremost, the increasing usage of netbooks and laptops. The trend is

towards growth of mobile workforce. The Gartner Consumer report

suggests that laptop market will continue to grow by 37% in 2009 to

3.69 million units. However another trend connected to laptop is the

increasing incidents of thefts.  Companies lose a major chunk

of their data through incidents of thefts of laptops and this data is

non-recoverable. Secondly, there has also been an increasing adoption

of mobile storage devices and smartphones. According to a market data

by Ascenda, the smart phone markets are expecting a CAGR of 23% by

2011.






It is also important that employees also going through physical checks,
apart from the virtual checks that takes place in enterprises. With the

usage of pen drives, CDs, and laptops in enterprises, it is important

to keep a check on employees usage on data and whether data is being

transferred or leaked to any of the devices such as laptop, pen drive,

or CDs. Interesting to note here is that 79% of the respondents

contacted for the survey admitted that their former employer did not

permit them to leave with company data.






The survey also suggests that a total of 15% of the respondents have
adopted some form of data loss prevention measures. Of this the BFSI

sector (33%) and IT/ITeS (30%)  sectors were early users of

DLP technologies. For 88%  organizations, information security

is the primary reason for deploying DLP, while compliance and

regulatory mandates (52%) was a key driver to prevent data loss.






A
Sustainable Way Out




According to the survey, a sustainable DLP program that could achieve a
culture of security among its employees and address risk factors is key

for any organization. The report suggests that Installing products is

not the only way out to ensure success but to implement compliance

requirements and risk management programs is essential. Indian

enterprises should see technology as an enabler and not as an

inhibitor.