Last week, Entrust issued the results of its 2019 Southeast Asia Encryption Trends Study. In polling the 270 respondents in Southeast Asia (which for the purpose of this report, include Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), the research unveiled a number of key findings.
To start, 46% of respondents transfer sensitive or confidential data to the cloud. Another 41% plan to do so in the next 12 months, a number that is the highest of all regions surveyed. Almost half (48%) of respondents use only keys controlled by their organization when encrypting data at rest in the cloud. This is 7% higher than the global average, and indicates a need for the peace of mind that comes from having agency over encryption keys – especially in cloud environments. While enterprises are increasingly turning to the cloud to save time and money, there are potential security risks associated with the technology.
Also of interest: One-third (33%) of organizations have a consistent, enterprise-wide encryption strategy. While a not-insignificant number for a region that’s finding its data security footing, it is less than respondents in the U.S. (65%), Germany (67%), and Australia (51%). It does compare to another technologically evolving region – the Middle East – where 36% of respondents state their organization has an overall encryption strategy.
The majority of respondents (48%) cite employee mistakes as the most significant threat to data, ahead of temporary or contract workers (39%) and hackers (27%). These numbers are similar to other regions. In fact, the same percentage of respondents in Hong Kong and Taiwan list employee mistakes as their biggest concern.
In taking stock of the report’s findings, one thing is near-certain: organizations will continue to experience threats to their data and continue to capitalize on all the cloud has to offer. With that, we expect future Southeast Asia Encryption Trends reports to show an uptick in both cloud and encryption deployments.
Questions or comments? Download the report here. You can also follow Entrust on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
