New Ponemon Institute study commissioned by Symantec finds 84 percent of U.S. organizations either deploying encryption or in the process of doing so. Most U.S. organizations are currently encrypting data or are in the process of doing so, and the No. 1 driver for this is compliance.
A new study by the Ponemon Institute, commissioned by Symantec, found that 84 percent of nearly 1,000 U.S. organizations surveyed are using encryption or starting to, an increase of 2 percent from 2009 and 5 percent from 2008. Overall, most organizations have deployed file-server encryption (62 percent), full-disk encryption (59 percent), and database encryption (57 percent). Full-disk encryption was up 5 percent over last year and 15 percent since 2007.

But the big shift is in what's driving encryption: For the first time in the survey's five-year history, the respondents said their main reason for adopting encryption is regulatory compliance. Nearly 70 percent ranked this as the main driver, up from 64 percent last year and 44 percent in 2006. Those who attributed their encryption use to protecting against breaches dropped to 63 percent this year, down from 59 percent in 2008. The Ponemon report attributes this change to the acceptance of the significance of regulations, and says data breaches have become more a part of the IT security fabric.

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