Last week at RSA Conference 2014 we announced the results of a Harris Poll survey we commissioned. It was an interesting process and the data it revealed was not altogether surprising, but the main conclusion one draws from it is frightening for IT professionals.
There were two basic questions asked of survey respondents:
- What type of personal information is on your PC or Laptop?
- How do you secure your PC or Laptop
Not surprisingly, many respondents had plenty of personal information stored on their systems that ranged from personal photos, social media log-in details to banking information. It was question #2 that really revealed the interesting bits of data:
A mere 14 percent of those who own a laptop or desktop computer encrypt their personal machines, and more than four out of ten (44 percent) are not prompted to enter a password when booting up their computers.
So what does this mean for IT professionals? It can mean that these end users are bringing their bad security practices to the office. As such, it’s critical that IT professionals remain vigilant about data security within their business. Whether that’s maintaining security policies or educating end-users on best practices to secure their personal information.
To read more about the results, you can see the press release here.
Additionally, we’re offering an eBook to IT managers concerned about consumer bad habits revealed by the survey results. The eBook provides best practices to secure enterprise data and train workers, and it can be downloaded by visiting: www.winmagic.com/harrissurvey/ebook
