New Independent Analyst Survey Shows Big Gap in Data Protection; Survey by Enterprise Strategy Group Points to Increasing Demand for Encryption and Key Management, Supports nCipher's Product Strategy.

CAMBRIDGE, England -- A survey by leading IT analyst firm, the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), has found that businesses need to do a better job of protecting their critical data. According to the survey of 227 security professionals, titled "Protecting Confidential Data":

--47% of all respondents said that more than half of their company's data can be classified as 'confidential'.

--Alarmingly, only 18% of respondents said that this data is adequately protected.

--In addition, only 23% of respondents believe that their current security technologies can completely enforce their data security policies.

"Businesses clearly realize that they need to take additional steps to protect their data and consequently security budgets are shifting to reflect this. Driven by concerns over regulatory compliance, risk management and a growing need to open up business applications to people outside the firewall, organizations are starting to deploy encryption more widely," said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.

The survey results echo the concerns that chief information security officers have been expressing to nCipher (LSE:NCH), a global leader in protecting enterprise data.

"This survey provides one of the most comprehensive reports on the topic of data protection and reinforces many of the trends that we have seen among our major customers. They increasingly view the use of encryption as a way to protect critical data throughout their business rather than at single points of risk within their infrastructure," said Richard Moulds, Vice President of Marketing at nCipher.

Further discussing the survey Oltsik continued, "Most organizations already use SSL and VPNs to protect data while in transit, but only a third of companies have deployed encryption for protecting data at rest, while another 40 percent are interested in deployment or have firm plans to do so in the next 12 months. However, there are a number of perceived barriers to the use of encryption, which include: worries about cost and the performance implications and concerns about key management and disaster recovery. Our survey highlights the pent-up demand for encryption and therefore the market opportunity for vendors that can successfully address these deployment issues."

nCipher's security solutions help businesses to protect confidential information, both in transit and at rest, identify who can access that data and establish an auditable record of activity. The nCipher product range includes the following:

--KeepSecure: nCipher's enterprise-wide data protection suite employs industry standard encryption techniques to protect confidential data within popular business applications, databases and file systems. By providing an additional and separately managed layer of protection to the data itself, KeepSecure establishes a separation of duties eliminating the risk arising from all-powerful system administrators or other similar super-users.

--Provisor: an identity management and user provisioning system that enables organizations to automate and manage all activities associated with adding, maintaining and removing users, their digital identities, credentials and entitlements. It provides centralized management of security policies and access privileges to critical applications, data and resources across the enterprise, reducing risk and simplifying regulatory compliance through comprehensive audit reporting.

--KeyAuthority: nCipher's centralized cryptographic key management system automates key delivery to distributed applications and geographically dispersed locations, which drives down operational costs and increases accountability by unifying and automating this critical aspect of security management.

--nShield and netHSM: nCipher's series of cryptographic hardware platforms allows organizations to go beyond software-based security techniques to secure encryption and signing keys, protect sensitive application code, prove the authenticity of documents and accelerate SSL operations. nCipher provides out-of-the-box integration with numerous commercial security applications through standards based interfaces in addition to a range of developer solutions to support custom applications and embedded deployments.

To download a copy of the ESG abstract 'Protecting Confidential Data,' please visit www.ncipher.com/esgpromotion/

About nCipher

nCipher protects critical enterprise data for many of the world's most security-conscious organizations. Delivering solutions in the fields of identity management, data protection, enterprise key management and cryptographic hardware, nCipher enables businesses to identify who can access data, to protect data in transit and at rest, and to comply with the growing number of privacy-driven regulations. nCipher plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:NCH). www.ncipher.com

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