The state of document-centric security

The growing popularity of consumer-grade, browser-based file sharing applications, such as YouSendIt and Dropbox, has improved productivity within the enterprise, but at what cost?

A Ponemon Institute study, which surveyed 622 IT and security practitioners with an average of more than 11 years of experience, answers this question.

Featured findings:

• Ninety percent of organizations represented in the study experienced leakage or loss of sensitive or confidential documents over the past 12-month period.
• Seventy-one percent of respondents say that controlling sensitive or confidential documents is more difficult than controlling records in databases.
• Seventy percent say documents accessed by mobile data-bearing devices such as smartphones and tablets present a significant security risk.
• Seventy percent of respondents say that employees, contractors or business partners have very frequent or frequent access to sensitive or confidential documents, even though access to this information is not a job or role-related requirement.
• Fifty-nine percent say their organizations’ controls are ineffective at monitoring employees, contractors or other insiders who access these confidential documents. An even higher percentage (63 percent) do not believe they are effective at assigning privilege to employees, contractors and other insiders whose jobs or roles requires access to sensitive or confidential documents.

“While users today expect on-demand access to all personal and company documents from any device, at any time, this study confirms that IT professionals are struggling to deliver on that expectation securely,” said Ryan Kalember, chief product officer at WatchDox.