by Angela Guess
A new survey shows that most companies lack confidence in their data security. The article states, “A survey conducted by Varonis, the leading provider of comprehensive data governance software, has revealed that 70% of organizations storing third party data are not ‘very confident’ that the sensitive data stored within their organization is protected. With 80% of organizations surveyed storing sensitive information from customers, clients, vendors and business partners, rather disconcertingly over half were only ‘fairly confident’ that it is protected. Nearly one fifth were ‘not confident at all’ that sensitive data is protected and an astonishing 5% were left ‘unsure.’”
It continues, “This means that the majority of organizations in this study are failing to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, the UK Data Protection Act 1988 and the EU Data Directive on Privacy which may result in organizations being subject to 2% fines of global revenue.”
David Gibson, director of strategy at Varonis stated, “It’s worrying that so many companies are still complacent when it comes to data protection. It means that these organizations would have some serious questions to answer should they suffer a breach. In fact, regulators such as the SEC, ICO and EU would likely deem that they had failed in their obligation to provide appropriate security protection to prevent sensitive data breaches and impose a hefty financial penalty. It’s really not rocket science — if you’ve got sensitive data and you’re not very confident that it’s adequately protected, you need to take action.”
