Venafi Survey: 70 Percent of Security Professionals Believe Governments Should Regulate Social Media Data Collection

Meanwhile, 72 percent say government officials do not have a good understanding of threats impacting digital privacy

SALT LAKE CITY--()--Venafi®, the leading provider of machine identity protection, today announced the results of a survey querying 512 security professionals attending RSA Conference 2018. The survey evaluated opinions on the intersection of cyber security, privacy threats and government regulation.

According to the survey, 70 percent of respondents say governments should regulate the collection of personal data by social media companies to protect user privacy. However, 72 percent believe their government officials do not have a good understanding of the threats impacting digital privacy.

“These results are disturbing,” said Kevin Bocek, vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi. “While security professionals agree that government officials do not understand the nuances of social media and digital privacy, they’re still looking to them to regulate the technology that permeates our daily lives.”

In addition, 74 percent of the respondents said government officials do not have a good understanding of the current cyber threat landscape. Despite their lack of confidence, nearly half (45 percent) believe governments should be able to impose encryption backdoors on private companies.

Bocek added: “It’s disheartening that so many security professionals think encryption backdoors will somehow make us safer. There is no question that they will undermine our global economy and make digital communication much more vulnerable. Any backdoor will be extremely lucrative, so cyber criminals will spend an enormous amount of effort to steal one. And once a backdoor is leaked it’s certain to be available to the highest bidders on the dark web.”

For more information:

https://www.venafi.com/blog/rsa-survey-should-governments-regulate-social-media-data-collection

About Venafi

Venafi is the cyber security market leader in machine identity protection, securing connections and communications between machines. Venafi protects machine identity types by orchestrating cryptographic keys and digital certificates for SSL/TLS, IoT, mobile and SSH. Venafi provides global visibility of machine identities and the risks associated with them for the extended enterprise — on premises, mobile, virtual, cloud and IoT — at machine speed and scale. Venafi puts this intelligence into action with automated remediation that reduces the security and availability risks connected with weak or compromised machine identities while safeguarding the flow of information to trusted machines and preventing communication with machines that are not trusted.

With over 30 patents, Venafi delivers innovative solutions for the world's most demanding, security-conscious Global 5000 organizations, including the top five U.S. health insurers; the top five U.S. airlines; four of the top five U.S., U.K. and South African banks; and four of the top five U.S. retailers. For more information, visit: http://venafi.com.

Contacts

Venafi
Shelley Boose, 408-398-6987
shelley.boose@venafi.com

Release Summary

Nearly half (45%) of security professionals believe governments should be able to impose encryption backdoors on private companies

Contacts

Venafi
Shelley Boose, 408-398-6987
shelley.boose@venafi.com