Only 10% of UK city councils are usingdata encryptionto protect sensitive
data on laptop computers, research has found.
This means 90% of councils cannot guarantee that data held on
mobile devices is protected, according to a survey of 40 councils
by network services firm
Telindus.
Although nearly half said they had responded to recent data
leakage incidents by reviewing or rolling out new security
technologies, 43% have no plans to upgrade their data
protection.
The city councils that are not upgrading their data protection
rely on
password authentication and data security guidelines which
state that sensitive data must not be transferred to laptops.
Despite low levels of data protection, 92% of the councils
polled enable staff to connect to the council network from remote
locations.
Mark Hutchinson, managing director of
Telindus, said as mobile
working becomes more popular, the vast majority of the public and
private sector still needs to catch up to this data security
risk.
"Relying on old security measures in a modern working
environment is short-sighted and foolhardy," he said.
According to Hutchinson, even though encryption protects data
against opportunist thieves, there is no way of knowing if the
encryption method has been cracked.
"Councils must think beyond
encryption when reviewing their security measures and consider
installing a 'track and kill' device on all laptops to tackle the
threat of
data leakage," he said.
The technology lets organisations track their laptops through 3G
communication and allows the IT department to access the device
after it is lost or stolen and remove data even if the device is
off.