Report: USB Drives create a security risk

Kingston Digital reports nearly 50 percent of organizations lose confidential data on the device  

By Schardé Vallone Published: 

August 09, 2011 01:55 PM

Kingston Digital Inc. (KDI), the Fountain Valley-based Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., released the results of a study conducted by Ponemon Institute ponemon.org. The study, which looked at USB Flash drive prevalence and security risks in businesses, surveyed a group of 743 IT professionals and IT security practitioners from global companies based in the United States. All of the firms recognized the significance of USB drives from a productivity perspective and warned against the lack of organization and regulations concerning the security of such data storage tools.

The Ponemon study found that, of the organizations surveyed, more than 40 percent have more than 50,000 USB drives in use, while nearly 20 percent have more than 100,000 drives in use. In addition, nearly 50 percent of these organizations verified that they have lost USB drives containing sensitive or confidential information in the last two years – 67 percent confirmed that such losses occurred multiple times. This caused organizations to lose 12,000 customers, consumers and employee records on average. The Ponemon study reports the cost of such a data violation is $214 per record, making the potential average total cost of lost records to reach upwards of $2.5 million.
“Kingston believes a lack of oversight, education and corporate confusion are factors that lead to the overwhelming majority of data loss when it comes to USB Flash drives,” says John Terpening, Kingston’s Secure USB business manager. “Organizations fear that any attempt to control a device like a USB is likely to be futile and costly, both in terms of budget and loss of productivity. However, a simple analysis of what an organization needs and the knowledge that there is a range of easy-to-use, cost-effective, secure USB Flash drive solutions can go a long way toward enabling organizations and their employees to get a handle on the issue.”