More than one-third of European enterprises experience increase in network security threats

Ciena® Corporation has announced the results of a Vanson Bourne survey indicating that more than one-third of surveyed European enterprises (36%) have experienced an increase in the frequency of network and data security-related incidents in the last 18 months. These results highlight the increasing need for network operators to deploy a comprehensive security approach that encompasses server security as well as at-rest and in-flight encryption, given that just nearly one-third (36%) of surveyed enterprises deploy in-flight encryption on the WAN links between sites and data centres.

  • Monday, 22nd April 2013 Posted 11 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Germany is leading the way when it comes to in-flight WAN encryption, with about half (49%) of surveyed companies stating that they use in-flight encryption on WAN data link between sites or data centres. In contrast, in the Netherlands and France about a third of enterprises (36 and 33% respectively) have adopted in-flight encryption, and in the UK only about a quarter (24%).

The most affected country by the trend of increased security-related incidents is France, where nearly half (49%) of enterprises have noticed an increase in security threats; followed by Germany (40%), the UK (28%) and the Netherlands (25%). The most affected sector is utilities with over half of companies (54%) having mentioned an increase.

Encryption of corporate devices and data at the application layer are the most popular encryption methods and are deployed by about half of surveyed organisations (53% and 48% respectively). Only one-tenth (11%) of surveyed enterprises do not deploy any encryption method. In contrast, in the public sector a higher proportion (16%) of surveyed organisations have no encryption in place, even though almost one-third (29%) of them have experienced an increase in security threats in the last 18 months.

The Netherlands and Germany are expected to lead the adoption of in-flight encryption in the near future. From the enterprises that are not currently deploying in-flight encryption, circa one-third plan to adopt the method for the first time (36% and 31% respectively). When broken down by sector, transport (40%), finance (33%) and utility organisations (22%) are expected to lead the adoption of in-flight encryption.