Survey: Half Of U.S. Companies At Risk Of Sensitive Information Leaks By Employee E-Mail

  • Nov 18, 2008

Mimecast, a holistic e-mail management company offering SaaS-based e-mail archiving, continuity and security, has found that 50 percent of U.S. companies are at risk of sensitive information leaks by employee e-mails, based on a survey of 500 IT professionals regarding their e-mail archiving and continuity policies.

The survey underscores the risks companies take such as costly litigation, compliance issues and loss of intellectual property when lacking an effective data leakage prevention solution that ensures the security of their corporate email.

Although e-mail is one of the most common sources of internal leaks of proprietary information, the Mimecast survey found that 27 percent of companies couldn’t track e-mail sent externally, 17 percent do not have a DLP policy and 10 percent were not sure what would happen if employees e-mailed confidential information out of their organization.

Gartner defines DLP as tools used to prevent inadvertent or accidental leaks or exposure of sensitive enterprise information using content inspection technologies.

Data leakage is a growing problem that has resulted in significant legal issues and damaged reputations for many companies. DLP not only stops potential exposure, but it is fast becoming a crucial information security control to address compliance requirement.

“The hosted provisioning model for e-mail is rapidly gaining visibility,” said Matthew Cain, research vice president for Gartner. “E-mail is evolving in numerous ways… security personnel want greater control over outbound content.”

“The survey results highlight the lack of DLP in the corporate climate and calls attention to the importance of safeguarding the information inside a company’s network,” said Mary Kay Roberto, senior vice president and general manager of Mimecast North America. “Mimecast’s SaaS solution allows companies to ensure that the information that leaves their e-mail networks complies with internal and external security requirements. Intellectual property protection is crucial for any business and identifying and containing data leaks from internal employees through emails should be a key concern of IT professionals when planning their e-mail security protocols.”

The online survey, which focused on how organizations support their e-mail structure, was conducted in September among 500 IT professionals ranging from SMBs to large enterprises.

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