Employees are carrying flash drives stuffed with valuable or confidential data, and few of them understand the inherent security risks, according to a recent study from SanDisk. A survey of corporate end users and corporate IT managers found IT executives have no idea how much data is walking around unencrypted in pockets, purses and briefcases; 77 per cent of corporate end users surveyed have used personal flash drives for work-related purposes, but when asked to estimate the percentage of workers using these drives, respondents came back with 35 per cent.
Data files most likely to be copied to a personal flash drive include:
> customer records 25 per cent > financial information 17 per cent > business plans 15 per cent > employee records 13 per cent > marketing plans 13 per cent > intellectual property 6 per cent > source code 6 per cent
Mobile data and voice are great, as long as the signal is strong. And while mobile networks are pretty good these days, road warriors quickly discover that dead zones still exist.