Latest research shows almost 2/3 of companies in the UK suffered from data breaches in the last two years
In a data security research commissioned by GFI Software and Infinigate UK, 58% of surveyed companies reported data breach incidents and data loss in the last two years, but still only 9% of the IT budgets is dedicated to IT security.
London, UK; July 8th 2016 – Information is at the very foundation of every modern company, so any loss of business data can be a real disaster. In the latest data security research, commissioned by GFI Software and Infinigate UK, almost 2/3 of surveyed companies (58% to be exact) reported data breaches in the last two years. To make matters worse, 37% of these attacks on business data integrity were reported to have been a deliberate act from within the company.
“The first major step in improving data security is giving it the priority it needs. Luckily, 81% of surveyed IT professionals recognize preventing data breaches as one of the top priorities for their IT departments”, explains Sergio Galindo, Chief Operating Officer at GFI Software. “The survey also revealed that only 9% of the total IT budgets is dedicated to IT security, which is not nearly enough, especially with the constantly rising level of security threats, particularly ransomware,” adds Galindo.
Lack of management buy-in (54%), insufficient internal resources and skills (48%) and budget limitations (43%) have been recognized as the main challenges to IT security, with 29% saying the challenges also lay in lack of suitable solutions. The majority of interviewed IT professionals identified The Data Protection Act (53%) and ISO 27001 standard (52%) as the main drivers of change in the IT security sphere.
“New trends are bringing new challenges to IT managers out there. 61% of surveyed organizations already have a BYOD policy in place, allowing employees to access internal resources through privately-owned mobile devices, and 71% of them are identifying Internet of Things as the next major threat to IT security,” emphasizes Chris Payne, Senior Technical Consultant at Infinigate UK, and adds: “Only about 25% of respondents stated that they are completely confident in their organization being able to successfully tackle security incidents, which is really disappointing given the fact that there are many affordable tools which can simplify infrastructure administration and improve IT security.”
81% of respondents claim that preventing data breaches, along with increasing cloud security, are among their organization’s highest priorities. In contrast to that, 89% of respondents’ organizations undertake a review of their IT security when a high-profile breach is reported in the press, potentially indicating a lack of complete confidence in their current readiness.
Participants of this research were IT decision makers from UK-based organizations with 200-1,000 employees, spreading across a range of industries, including public sector, and the survey was executed in April 2016 by a specialized technology market research company Vanson Bourne.
More information from this data security research can be found in the full report, which you can download here.
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About GFI Software
GFI Software develops right-sized, smartly engineered IT solutions for businesses of all sizes. Our solutions enable IT administrators to easily and efficiently discover, manage and secure their business networks, systems, applications and communications, regardless of their location. GFI Software is a channel-focused company with a network of thousands of partners worldwide. We have received numerous awards and industry accolades, and are a longtime Microsoft® Gold ISV Partner. For more information about GFI Software, our products, and success stories of our customers from over 120 countries, please visit www.gfi.com
About Infinigate UK
Infinigate was founded in 1996 as the first distributor of internet technology solutions in Europe. Since 2002 Infinigate’s sole focus has been the distribution of sustainable IT security solutions to protect and defend IT networks, servers, devices, data, applications, as well as the cloud. As a true Value Added Distributor, Infinigate focuses on and supports innovative, best of breed security solutions that require an advanced level of expertise and knowledge. Infinigate offers a complete service to its partners and vendors to complement its product portfolio with dedicated technical, marketing, sales and professional services. For more information, please visit www.infinigate.co.uk