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MOST COMPANIES INADEQUATELY PROTECT DATAA full 54% of the more than 300 companies responding to a recent survey have no documented procedures for protecting stored data, and 70% executives rated their company's data storage security as only fair or poor. These were among the findings in the 2005 Data Storage Security Survey conducted by GlassHouse Technologies Inc., a Framingham, Mass.-based data storage consulting firm. Other findings include:

* 61% respondents believe external threats are more dangerous than internal threats, even though internal users have greater access to sensitive data.

* 85% do not encrypt their backup data, despite highly publicized recent cases of backup tapes being stolen and lost.

* 50% say the company's intellectual property was their greatest concern even though there are greater legal consequences for mishandling customers' personal information.

MAJORITY OF ONLINE CONSUMERS HAVE PROBLEMS WITH TRANSACTIONS

Eighty-nine percent of online customers say they experience problems when conducting transactions on company Web sites. That's according to a consumer survey commissioned by TeaLeaf Technology Inc., a San Francisco-based Web analytics provider, and conducted by Harris Interactive.

The data also reveals that the majority of online consumers (82%) are unwilling to accept a lower level of customer service when comparing online and offline transactions. And more than one in three (34%) would turn to a competitor, either online (27%) or offline (14%), if they experienced a problem when conducting an online transaction.

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