ZixCorp looks to answer the question: Do people in the United States associate encryption with security? 72 percent say yes.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 17, 2016-- A newly released survey by email data protection company Zix Corporation (ZixCorp), (NASDAQ: ZIXI), sheds light on how people in the United States view encryption. The Qualtrics-conducted study, which surveyed more than 500 people in the United States over the age of 18, revealed that the overwhelming majority view encryption as positive. When asked what word they would most associate with encryption, 72 percent of respondents chose “security,” while 24 percent chose “privacy” and only 4 percent chose “threat.”

In recent months, the national debate between government and tech giants around the topic of encryption and backdoors into the technology has been heated. With this highly publicized debate playing out on the nightly news and presidential debates, it’s no surprise that a majority of survey respondents (42 percent) selected media coverage as the factor that most influenced their views on encryption, while 28 percent cited personal experience, 16 percent cited personal research, and 14 percent cited experience at work.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (95 percent) believe that their sensitive information should be encrypted online. But interestingly, to the question, have you ever used encryption, 43 percent answered no and 25 percent said they weren’t sure. Only 32 percent said yes, they had used encryption.

“As the debate regarding encryption and backdoors continues, it’s interesting to see how the public perceives the technology – especially with the amount of coverage it’s currently receiving in the media,” said David Wagner, CEO of ZixCorp. “We are pleased the majority of people surveyed view encryption in a positive light and recognize its association with security. As a provider of email data protection for more than 15 years, we understand backdoors in any encryption technology only expose and hurt the consumers and businesses that encryption is meant to protect. We strongly advocate the use of encryption with frontdoors for protecting business communication and encourage more people to research how encryption properly guards their data, lives and community on a daily basis.”

Frontdoors exist within encryption technology and enable businesses to comply with legal proceedings and government search warrants without weakening encryption algorithms for exploitation by hackers and criminals.

Additional findings from the survey include:

• 75 percent of respondents said they provide sensitive information (credit card, address, Social Security number) when online for such tasks as shopping, banking or emailing
• When asked what adjective best describes encryption, 79 percent said “secure,” 16 percent said “complicated,” and 5 percent said “frightening”
• 88 percent of respondents said they believe their healthcare provider has taken the proper steps to protect their medical information, with 12 percent saying no

For additional commentary on the survey, please visit www.zixcorp.com/2016-encryption-survey-blog. To learn more about Zix^® Email Data Protection, visit http://www.zixcorp.com.

About Zix Corporation

ZixCorp is a leader in email data protection. ZixCorp offers industry-leading email encryption, a unique email DLP solution and an innovative email BYOD solution to meet your company’s data protection and compliance needs. ZixCorp is trusted by the nation’s most influential institutions in healthcare, finance and government for easy-to-use secure email solutions. ZixCorp is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol ZIXI, and its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit www.zixcorp.com.

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Source: Zix Corporation

ZixCorp
Public Relations
Taylor Stansbury Johnson, 214-370-2134
tjohnson@zixcorp.com