Security Slideshow: Self-Encrypting Drives: The Secret to Security?

A study from the Ponemon Institute puts statistics behind something you may already know: That self-encrypting drives are integral to the safety of your corporate data. The study, "Perceptions About Self-Encrypting Drives: A Study of IT Practitioners," was commissioned from Ponemon by Trusted Computing Group, a provider of open-standard computing technologies. Companies that employ such drives are far more likely to save themselves from potential breaches than those that choose not to use such hardware, according to the report. If you aren't familiar with self-encrypting drives, the devices encrypt corporate data automatically and on a continuous basis to ensure information is not unnecessarily left open to potential threats. Self-encrypting drives become all the more useful when one considers that 40% of employees admit to turning off software encryption services without considering the security impact of doing so. In order to gauge the importance of self-encrypting drives in the enterprise, Ponemon Institute surveyed 517 U.S. T workers in the financial services, retail, healthcare, and technology sectors. The survey also reveals some frightening stats on how many respondents have experienced a data breach.