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Ponemon Institute Unveils Second Annual Study on Enterprise Encryption Trends

58 percent of organizations expect to deploy a single enterprise-wide key management solution in 2008

Palo Alto, CA / 31 March, 2008 – PGP Corporation, a global leader in enterprise data protection, today announced the results from a second annual study by The Ponemon Institute© identifying key areas of focus in enterprise encryption use, planning strategies, budgeting and spending, deployment methodologies, and impact on data breach incidents. The key findings of the 2008 Annual Study: U.S. Enterprise Encryption Trends demonstrate organizations continue to move towards a more holistic approach to encryption including a larger focus on key management, especially those organizations identified as having the most effective IT organizations.

The study of nearly 1000 U.S.-based IT and business managers, analysts and executives (40 percent at the director or VP level), identifies a new trend that shows organizations with a more strategic, enterprise-wide approach to encryption have experienced fewer data breaches. In response to increasing demands for data security, 21 percent of organizations surveyed now having an encryption strategy applied consistently across the organization, up from 16 percent in 2007.

“This study continues to break new ground in identifying enterprise IT security trends,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon Institute. “Organizations are spending significant portions of their encryption budgets on key management and are looking for more complete solutions from a single vendor instead of point products. With more organizations experiencing data breaches, those who deploy a holistic enterprise encryption strategy will significantly reduce their risk.”

The study also shows that 84 percent of organizations surveyed suffered at least one data breach over the last 12 months with 44 percent of organizations suffering two to five breaches during the same time period. However, organizations with an enterprise encryption strategy showed a statistically significant lower rate of data breaches. This demonstrates that an encryption strategy, especially one implemented across the enterprise, reduces the costs and brand damage associated with data breaches and likely leads to a more profitable business.

Other key findings in this year’s research include:

  • Encryption use across multiple applications growing. Respondents reported the consistent encryption of laptops, file servers, emails, and backup tapes increased. Laptop encryption is the most common, with 20 percent reporting use most of the time.

  • Key management is more frequently budgeted for in 2008 as organizations seeking to reduce operational costs prefer to choose just one enterprise vendor. Organizations surveyed on average plan to spend 34 percent of their total encryption budget on key management solutions:

    • 45 percent of organizations expect their key management investments to reduce the overall operational costs of enterprise data protection.

    • 58 percent of organizations expect to deploy a single enterprise-wide key management solution or deploy a single vendor’s key management solution for different purposes in 2008.

    • Only 13 percent of organizations are seeking a tactical key management solution for just one encryption application.

  • Organizations more interested in a platform approach. WWith a need to enforce policy and increase automation for key management, respondents were overwhelmingly interested in a platform approach, with up to 75 percent rating key features as important or very important. Respondents believe a platform approach enables their business to reduce expenses and improve productivity and identified these top three benefits of this approach:

    • Reduction of operational expenses (63 percent of respondents)

    • Flexibility to add other encryption applications in the future, as needs (61 percent)

    • Elimination of redundant administrator tasks (54 percent)

Finding that organizations with enterprise-wide encryption strategies are reducing the risk of data breaches and organizations overwhelming prefer a platform approach to encryption is significant in the evolution of data security. The increased interest in automated policy enforcement, single administration interface, and comprehensive key management continue to favor adoption of an encryption platform solution. The preference for adopting this approach to managing multiple encryption applications from a single console continues to mirror the progression seen with other important enterprise applications such as ERP and CRM.

Recent research conducted by the Ponemon Institute found the cost of a data breach averaging $197 per record compromised or an average total of $6.3 million per breach. For the third year, research by The Ponemon Institute revealed the average cost of a data breach continued to rise, growing 43% since 2005 to an average $197 per record compromised. With a very real impact, data breaches cost an average of $6.3 million.

“This study reaffirms what we’ve been telling our customer for a long time - a strategic encryption strategy defends an organization’s data more effectively than assembling just point encryption products,” said Phillip Dunkelberger, president and CEO of PGP Corporation. "The study continues to show the most effective, most productive enterprises seeking a platform approach to encryption. The Ponemon Institute research now also shows that organizations are spending their key management budgets on single-vendor solutions and are better defending their enterprise data from data breaches."

The Ponemon Institute is also conducting second annual reports in the United Kingdom and Germany and will conduct first time research in Australia. These reports will be available later this year.

For more information or to receive a copy of this study, visit: http://www.pgp.com/downloads/research_reports/index.html

About The Ponemon Institute
The Ponemon Institute© is dedicated to advancing responsible information and privacy management practices in business and government. To achieve this objective, the Institute conducts independent research, educates leaders from the private and public sectors and verifies the privacy and data protection practices of organizations in a variety of industries.

About PGP Corporation
PGP Corporation is a global leader in email and data encryption software for enterprise data protection. Based on a unified key management and policy infrastructure, the PGP® Encryption Platform offers the broadest set of integrated applications for enterprise data security. PGP platform-enabled applications allow organizations to meet current needs and expand as security requirements evolve for email, laptops, desktops, instant messaging, smartphones, network storage, file transfers, automated processes, and backups.

PGP® solutions are used by more than 80,000 enterprises, businesses, and governments worldwide, including 95 percent of the Fortune® 100, 75 percent of the Fortune® Global 100, 87 percent of the German DAX Index, and 51 percent of the U.K. FTSE 100 Index. As a result, PGP Corporation has earned a global reputation for innovative, standards-based, and trusted solutions. PGP solutions help protect confidential information, secure customer data, achieve regulatory and audit compliance, and safeguard companies’ brands and reputations. Contact PGP Corporation at www.pgp.com.

Media & analyst contact for PGP Corporation:
Tom Rice
Merritt Group
+1 703 856 2218
rice@merrittgrp.com

Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements in this press release are forward-looking, including statements regarding the availability, plans, delivery, goals, development, expected features, expected benefits and competitive position of PGP products implementing or leveraging the PGP technologies. All references made to product feature enhancements, improvements in Platform support or additional functionality are subject to change at PGP Corporation’s sole discretion. All future descriptions of PGP technology and products are subject to availability only if PGP Corporation decides to build them and when PGP Corporation decides to make them commercially available. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties that PGP Corporation faces that could cause results to differ materially include risks associated with any unforeseen technical difficulties or software errors related to the final development and launch of any of PGP Corporation’s products; any technological, regulatory, or standards changes in the security, encryption and authentications market which could make PGP Corporation’s products less competitive or require feature changes in these products; any slowdown in the adoption by businesses of encryption suites, secure email, Internet technologies or related standard. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof, and PGP Corporation does not assume any obligation to update such statements nor the reasons why actual results could differ materially from those projected in such statements.

PGP and the PGP logo are registered trademarks of PGP Corporation. Product and brand names used in the document may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Any such trademarks or registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

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Media Contact – U.S.:
Tom Rice
Merritt Group
+1 703 856 2218
rice@merrittgrp.com

Media Contact Germany:
Ingrid Daschner
Johnson King
+49 (0) 89 8940 8511
ingridd@johnsonking.de

Media Contact – Japan:
Kyosuke Wakairo
Powered Communications Inc.
+81 3 5211 7899
pgp@powered-
communications.com

Media Contact – U.K.:
Jacqui Depares
Johnson King
+44 (0)20 7401 7968
jacquid@johnsonking.co.uk

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