Those of you who visited the Ipswitch File Transfer tradeshow booth at the recent RSA Security Conference were likely asked to fill out a short survey.  When the show ended, we tabulated the survey results and there are some staggering data points that we want to share:

• 83% of IT executives surveyed lack visibility into files moving both internally and externally
• Nearly 90 percent of survey respondents admitted to using thumb drives or other external devices to move work-related files
• 66 percent of survey respondents admitted to using personal emails to send work-related files
• More than 25 percent admitted to sending proprietary files to their personal email accounts, with the intent of using that information at their next place of employment

Here’s my colleague Frank Kenny, VP of Global Strategy at Ipswitch File Transfer, sharing his thoughts on the survey results.

The key takeaway here is that IT organizations are at a greater risk for sensitive company information ending up in the wrong hands if they don’t know who is accessing company information and how they use/move files, where they send them, and to whom they are sent to.  It’s not enough to secure common data access points or provide tools for some employees.  Rather, true visibility into all file and data interactions enables IT organizations to then actively manage, secure and enforce policies for company information, both inside and outside of the organization.