SANTA CLARA, CA - December 5, 2006-- Thales, a leading provider of security solutions for protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access, announced today that a survey of over 500 attendees at Oracle OpenWorld 2006 in San Francisco pointed to heightened concerns over data security and compliance.
Oracle OpenWorld was held October 22nd through 25th in San Francisco, CA. As an Oracle Partner and exhibitor within Oracle's Secured Enterprise Pavilion, Thales surveyed over 500 OpenWorld attendees. Survey questions included: "What drives you to secure sensitive data?" and "What compliance regulations are you currently working towards?"
According to the survey respondents, the majority of threats to data security come from internal sources (63%) vs external sources (37%) and compliance is a very large driver for data protection. 67% of survey respondents answered that auditors and state laws like California's SB1386 drove their data protection initiatives. As might be expected from an Oracle event, survey respondents also said that the majority of their sensitive data resided in databases and back up tapes.
The survey results also highlight a rise in the interest in data protection and specifically encryption technology from the previous year. Over 63% had interest in encryption vs 45% in 2005. Of that percentage, compliance initiatives seemed to be a big driver as the need to protect data for SOX, HIPAA and the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards -- Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, etc.) continues to grow. Another data protection driver seems to be the press. Many respondents said that "staying out of the press" and "protecting brand reputation" were important factors in considering security technologies, a likely result of the 34+ state privacy laws (such as California's SB1386) requiring a company to notify the public of a data breach if the data lost was not encrypted.
"IT Professionals, Oracle DBAs and keepers of sensitive data like cardholder data or employee social security numbers find themselves and their companies responsible for the care and safety of data," said Tom Grubb, Vice President of Marketing, Thales. "If they don't protect their data or comply with the latest compliance initiatives, they might find themselves in the Wall Street Journal as part of the latest data breach news or worse than that, in the middle of an FTC inquiry. Compliance and data protection are definitely driving forces in data security."
Thales is a current member of the Oracle® PartnerNetwork and was one of just eight companies announced by Oracle in April 2006 as part of Oracle's Database Vault Initiative.
About Thales
Thales is the leader in data security management and enforcement solutions. Vormetric Data Security provides a centrally managed, high performance, easy-toimplement, distributed solution that solves the pressing compliance, security and risk management challenges facing today’s enterprises and government agencies. Thales application- and database-transparent solution outperforms other offerings to provide stronger and broader data security at a fraction of the management and implementation cost.
Thales more than 230 customers represent the world’s most trusted brands in financial services, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, media, energy and telecom industries as well as highly security conscious government agencies.
Thales technology has received strong market validation for its innovative approach to data security, including:
- Selection by IBM as the core database encryption solution for DB2 and Informix on LinuxTM, Unix® and Windows
- Computerworld Technology Innovation Award
- Selection by Symantec to provide the Symantec Veritas NetBackupTM Media Server Encryption Option
- Partnership with Oracle to secure the execution environment for Oracle® Database Vault
- Five patents issued and nine patents pending
Thales is a trademark of Thales, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.