The security division of Bell Micro has announced findings from a new independent research report which suggests that UK businesses are still failing to address the protection of data assets on the network from staff abuse, misuse or direct theft.

Most respondents in IT based roles (74%) recognise, and work to protect, against the danger of rogue connections such as customer or contractor laptops yet almost half (43%) were failing to enforce a policy of encrypting data on portable devices - such as personal laptops, PDAs and removable media.  Worse still, 62% of respondents indicated that IT departments would be unable to detect if an employee copied data off a server onto a PC, laptop, USB stick or a disk.

“What these findings show is that there is still a paramount need to increase attention to data management and protection in an organisation,” said Steve Browell, General Manager, of the Security Division at Bell Micro. “How data is encrypted, moved and stored must move up the business agenda, otherwise we are just leaving the gates wide open for the horse to bolt. The tools are already available but vendors, distributors and resellers alike must come together to deliver better education to customers and create a total service that can deliver true data loss prevention.”