GFI Survey Finds 85% of US Businesses Rely on Fax Technology

CLEARWATER, Fla., Nov. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- GFI Software™ today announced the results of a new survey about the faxing habits of U.S. office workers, which show that by an overwhelming margin, faxing continues to be an important form of office communication for most businesses. However, concerns exist about the privacy of data when transmitted over a paper-based fax system.

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The independent blind survey, which polled 1,008 office workers in U.S. organizations ranging from 10 to 500 employees, was conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of GFI Software. Contradicting the widespread perception that faxing is no longer commonly used, 85% of respondents said their business makes use of faxing, and more than half (54%) of respondents who use faxing said it is a central part of their daily workflow process for customer, vendor and interdepartmental communications.

Security and Privacy at Risk
Perhaps most surprising is the fact that 72% of these businesses are still making use of traditional paper fax technology, a potentially risky practice that may compromise information privacy. The GFI poll found that half (50%) of office workers have at one time or another been concerned about security and privacy when sending a traditional paper fax. Their concerns are well founded, as 49% of respondents admitted to reading a paper fax that was intended for someone else. In the financial services, healthcare and legal industries especially, where data privacy is paramount, this represents an enormous risk.   

Electronic Faxing More Secure Than Email
44% of respondents said they believed that email is more secure than faxing, suggesting that many people aren't aware of the security-related distinctions between these technologies. Unlike electronic faxing, email can contain viruses and Trojans and can be blocked by spam filters (often with no notification to either sender or recipient). Email also travels through many stops where data can be intercepted, while an encrypted fax is direct from one point to the other and provides proof of delivery.

Key findings from the survey include:

• Nearly one in two (49%) office workers have read a paper fax sitting in a fax machine that was intended for someone else.
• 46% don't know whether a document or contract sent by fax is legally binding, while an additional 12% believe (incorrectly) that it isn't.
• 44% of respondents think email is more secure than fax, while 43% think they are equally secure. Just 13% think faxing is more secure than email.
• 50% of respondents who have sent data via paper fax have been concerned about privacy and security issues. That level of concern swells above the average in business sectors where sensitive or proprietary data is abundant, including healthcare (60%), financial services (56%), sales, media and marketing (64%), and IT and telecoms (67%).
• 85% of U.S. businesses make use of faxing in some form.
• 52% of those who fax say that faxing is a central part of their daily workflow process.
• 72% still use traditional paper faxing, while 27% use electronic network fax server solutions and only 12% use online fax services.
• 29% of businesses are still utilizing fax technology because the companies they work with require it, and 24% are themselves required by government or industry regulations to use it.

"Faxing is a required form of transactional communication in a number of key industries for compliance reasons, but while paper faxing can be risky from a privacy perspective, many people aren't aware that electronic faxing is actually superior to even email in terms of security," said Phil Bousfield, general manager of the Infrastructure Business Unit at GFI Software. "This is a technology that has quietly evolved to change with the times and serve the needs of various vertical markets, leapfrogging email in the process to become the most secure form of digital communication available. Whether most people realize it or not, faxing is here to stay - it's just had a facelift."

A copy of the full survey results is available upon request. The survey coincides with today's announcement of GFI FaxMaker 2013, a hybrid online fax alternative with many new features that provide secure communications for industries that require faxing for regulatory compliance purposes.

About GFI
GFI Software provides web and mail security, archiving and fax, networking and security software and hosted IT solutions for small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) via an extensive global partner community. GFI products are available either as on-premise solutions, in the cloud or as a hybrid of both delivery models. With award-winning technology, a competitive pricing strategy, and a strong focus on the unique requirements of SMBs, GFI satisfies the IT needs of organizations on a global scale. The company has offices in the United States, UK, Austria, Australia, Malta, Hong Kong, Philippines and Romania, which together support hundreds of thousands of installations worldwide. GFI is a channel-focused company with thousands of partners throughout the world and is also a Microsoft Gold ISV Partner.

For more information
GFI Software
Please email David Kelleher at [email protected]
GFI - Malta: Tel: +356 2205 2000; Fax: +356 21382419.
URL: http://www.gfi.com.

Davies Murphy Group
Please email Tim Allik at [email protected]
GFI – US: Tel: +1-781-418-2410

Disclaimer
Copyright © 2012 GFI Software. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. To the best of our knowledge, all details were correct at the time of publishing; this information is subject to change without notice

SOURCE GFI Software