Top Five Industries Impacted by Data Encryption Challenges in 2014

Financial services

Financial services institutions continue to be a top target for data breaches. Between hackers, missing devices, card scams and insider data theft, banking institutions are constantly at risk of having their customer’s private financial information fall into the wrong hands. Even worse, many employees -- even those who are tech savvy -- do not recognize when there is an event that is a red flag for an impending data breach. A recent study from the Ponemon Institute also found that the vast majority of businesses estimate that they could lose upwards of $163 million in a single breach.

Encryption is the only way for these institutions to keep their customer data out of harm’s way, and with an ever-evolving regulatory framework, that may be easier said than done. For example, many financial institutions feel as though their customers' personal banking information is safe through the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS); however, many security professionals feel that this measure is merely a minimal baseline security element rather than a “one all, end all” solution to banking data breaches.