The Link Between Encryption and Trust
By Ebba Blitz, CEO of Alertsec.
Trust is the foundation for most relationships—with husbands and wives, with parents and children, with employers and employees and with businesses and their customers. Trust is required for success, and the loss of trust dooms many relationships.
Trust is a major factor when a prospect is making a buying decision. Prospects who don't believe in the integrity of a company and/or the reliability of its products will rarely, if ever, become buyers. And when you lose your customers' trust, you ultimately also lose both revenue and shareholder value.
A recent example of this is when the personal data of the NFL's Washington Redskins players that was put at risk.
Confidential player data was put at risk for compromise after a laptop computer belonging to a Redskins athletic trainer was stolen.
While the laptop was password-protected, it was however, unencrypted.
What happened to the Washington Redskins was a total fumble on computer security. While we should be surprised that the laptop was not encrypted, our research shows most companies do not ensure their laptops are encrypted until a breach like this takes place. Ultimately, this security fumble proves why everyone needs encryption.
The password protected laptop likely created a false sense of security. According to our own research businesses overwhelmingly fear that standard security precautions create a false sense of security for laptop and mobile users.
For example, more than two-thirds of executives (68%) believe auto-saved passwords are not secure. Nearly half (48%) of SMB executives believe never logging out of user profiles decreases security, followed by having 4-6 digital passcodes (45%). Over one in five SMB executives (23%) believe lock down (when functionality of the system is restricted) is not secure, while 16% believe that lock ups (when multiple password attempts failed, causing restrictions) are also insecure. You can see the research here.
This incident shows why encryption as a service is so valuable. Obviously the NFL has the resources to afford any encryption offering – but in this case, that did not happen. For those who want a cost-efficient solution and do not want to allocate resources to an IT department to manage encryption, we recommend encryption as a service.
