Entrust 2021 Hong Kong Encryption Trends Study Shows Increased Focus on Cloud Data Protection Across Region

Conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the 16th annual study highlights regional adoption of enterprise-wide encryption faster than global averages

HONG KONG SAR – Media
OutReach – 9 June 2021 – Security and
IT professionals in Hong Kong continue to outpace the global average when it
comes to the adoption of enterprise-wide encryption, with particular focus on cloud
services and applications, as well as containers. This and other findings are
highlighted in the Entrust 2021 Hong Kong Encryption
Trends Study,
part of the 16^th annual multinational survey by the Ponemon
Institute. The study reports on the cybersecurity challenges organisations face
today, and how and why organizations deploy encryption.

 

Identified
threats and priorities

Specifically,
54% of respondents in Hong Kong now have a consistently applied encryption
plan/strategy, well ahead of the global average (50%) for the second year
running. Also for the second straight year in Hong Kong, the biggest threats
that might result in the exposure of sensitive data were employee mistakes (47%
vs. 53% globally) and system or process malfunction, which increased from 30%
to 36% (vs. 31% globally).

 

Currently,
around six-in-ten (59%) organizations surveyed in Hong Kong transfer data to
the cloud. This is up from 55% last year, but is expected to surge with an
additional 24% planning to do so in the next 12-24 months. Similarly, just over
half of organizations surveyed deploy encryption for public cloud services (51%
vs. 46% globally) and Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) management support was cited as
the fastest growing feature of cloud encryption solutions by 53%, up from 48%
last year.

 

Furthermore,
nearly half (47%) of responding IT professionals in Hong Kong deploy encryption
for containers, the highest rate worldwide, up from 40% last year and far above
the global average of 32%.

 

The
growing role of hardware security modules (HSMs)

For Hong
Kong IT professionals, the pain associated with key management is increasing,
with two-thirds reporting a high rate of overall pain associated with managing
keys or certificates. This is up from 61% last year and higher than this year’s
global average of 56%.

 

Similar to
last year, the top factor driving this is “no clear ownership” (74% vs. 64%
globally), with inadequate key management tools in second place (58% vs. 46%
globally).

 

Another
factor to consider is the lower rates of hardware security module (HSM) adoption,
with  40% of respondent organizations in
Hong Kong using HSMs (vs. 49% globally). The fact that this is up from 34% last
year, making it the 2nd highest increase worldwide, suggests that the benefits
of HSMs – including the ability to help with key management – are being
recognized in the region.

 

In fact, Hong
Kong results indicate that the importance of HSMs to encryption or key
management strategy is expected to increase from 63% to 79% over the next 12
months. Similarly, with the increased focus on cloud migration, when using HSMs
to protect cloud applications a higher percentage of responding organizations
in Hong Kong than any other region prefer to use HSMs they own and operate (54%
vs 41% globally).

 

Over the
next 12 months, respondent organizations anticipate greater use of HSMs for
several use cases, led by TLS/SSL going from 38% to 78% year over year, the largest
expected increase of any use case. Other leading use cases include database
encryption (increasing from 25% to 45%), blockchain applications (from 13% to
30%) and payment transaction processing or payment credential
issuing/provisioning (expected to increase from 26% to 40%).

 

“Organizations
in Hong Kong are increasing their use of the cloud and containers as IT and
security professionals focus on  the
risks associated with employee mistakes and system or process malfunctions. As
they strive to protect customer information and intellectual property and to
comply with data privacy mandates, organizations on average now use more than eight
different products that perform encryption. This brings new challenges
associated with discovering where sensitive data resides, deploying encryption
technology and training users to use encryption appropriately,” said Michael
Tai, Area Vice President, Greater China, Entrust. “Key management still causes
a high level of pain, due primarily to concerns about key ownership and
inadequate key management tools. As they deploy encryption for databases,
containers and cloud applications, organizations in the region seek encryption
solutions that offer scalability, tamper resistance with an HSM, but as cloud
use increases, organizations prefer to own and manage the HSMs used to protect
cloud applications.”

 

Additional
Information:

Report: 2021 Hong Kong Encryption Trends
Study

Blog: As cyber threats grow, Hong Kong
outpaces the world in enterprise encryption strategies

 

2021 Global Encryption Trends Study methodology

The 2021
Global Encryption Trends Study, based on research by the Ponemon Institute,
captures how organizations around the world are dealing with compliance,
increased threats, and the implementation of encryption to protect their business-critical
information and applications. 6,610 IT professionals were surveyed across
multiple industry sectors in 17 countries/regions: Australia, Brazil, France,
Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Middle East (which is a combination of
respondents located in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), Netherlands,
the Russian Federation, Spain, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.