CHICAGO POINTSEC MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES ADDRESSES PDA DATA SECURITY AND THEFTSilicon Valley Biz Ink :: The voice of the valley economyPepperdine/Pointsec Study Reveals 31% of Respondents Store Company-Sensitive
Information on Their PDAs; Nearly One in Four Have Had Their PDA Lost or
Stolen

CHICAGO, April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) have
become a daily productivity tool for millions of business users. A new study
of PDA users, however, points to a significant risk to companies, as large
numbers of employees store company-sensitive information on the small, easily
lost or stolen devices with virtually no security protection of any kind.
The study, 2004 United States PDA Business Usage Survey, was conducted by
the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University in
Los Angeles and sponsored by Pointsec Mobile Technologies, Inc., USA, a
subsidiary of IT security company Protect Data. The random survey was
administered to 230 business professionals across the U.S., all of whom use a
PDA on a regular basis. Among the study's key findings:

-- Half of all respondents did not have any kind of security features on
their PDAs other than standard power-on password protection;
-- 81% of respondents carry "somewhat valuable" or "extremely valuable"
information on their PDA;
-- 24% of respondents have experienced a loss or theft of at least one of
their PDAs;
-- 38% access their corporate networks or multiple networks using their
device; and
-- 60% of all executive-level respondents say their business would be
"somewhat" or "extremely" affected if the data on company-issued PDAs
were lost.

"The data from the Pepperdine study tracks with similar research our
company has done in countries outside the U.S. Clearly, unprotected PDAs are
putting employers -- whether corporate or organizational -- at risk," said
Thomas Blitz, President of Pointsec Mobile Technologies, Inc., USA. "What's
more, despite the risk, many corporate executives still perceive security to
be a less-than-critical PDA purchase consideration."

Price, Ease-of-Use Most Important
The 2004 United States PDA Business Usage Survey found that 37% of
executive-level respondents supply PDAs to their employees as a basic
productivity tool. Yet when asked what factors are most important to their
companies when considering a PDA purchase, "security" ranked third (57%)-
behind "price" and "ease-of-use".
Underscoring the risk to companies is the high financial cost resulting
from data theft. In the eighth annual 2003 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and
Security Survey conducted by the Computer Security Institute,
( http://www.gocsi.com ), a leading information security industry association, theft
of proprietary data, while down from the previous year, was still listed as
the number one cause of financial loss for businesses. Average loss by
participating companies suffering a loss was approximately $2.7 million.

Interest in Protection
Also evident in the 2004 United States PDA Business Usage Survey was the
desire by PDA users for improved protection -- despite a seeming lack of
awareness about the seriousness of data loss. Seventy-seven percent of all
respondents said they were "somewhat" or "extremely" comfortable storing
sensitive data on their PDAs; yet 71% also said they would like to have log-in
password protection on their devices. Another 70% said they would be
"somewhat" or "extremely" interested in a security system for their PDA.
Thirty percent also revealed they use removable storage devices in
conjunction with their PDA us -- pointing to yet another potential security
risk.
Other results included support for personal digital assistants that come
bundled with security protection. Sixty-four percent of those responding said
they would be willing to pay more for a PDA with a security system than one
without.
The 2004 United States PDA Business Usage Survey was conducted by the
Marketing Department of the Graziadio School of Business and Management of
Pepperdine University and administered by the school's MBA candidates. The
survey was conducted March 5-17, 2004.

About Pointsec Mobile Technologies
Pointsec Mobile Technologies AB is a wholly owned subsidiary of Protect
Data AB, publicly traded (PROT) on the Stockholm stock exchange. The company
develops and markets access-controlling and encrypting systems for stationary
and portable computers, palmtop computers, smartphones, PDAs, etc. Pointsec
Mobile Technologies has offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington DC
in the USA, Cambridge in the United Kingdom, Dusseldorf in Germany, and
Stockholm, Falun, and Sundsvall in Sweden. Visit our web site at:
http://www.pointsec.com .
Pointsec is a registered trademark of Pointsec Mobile Technologies. All
other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their
respective owners.