Few businesses confident data they store is protected

When Varonis, a provider of comprehensive data governance software, surveyed 200 I.T. professionals about their data protection practices and confidence levels, the results were disappointing and potentially showed breaches of expected data protection processes.

While over 80% said they store customer, vendor or business partner data, just 26% were "very confident" that data was protected. Nearly a fifth was "not confident at all" that the data they store is protected and a worrying 5% were "unsure".

"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," said David Gibson, director of strategy for Varonis. "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."

Of those respondents who stated they were not confident that the data within their organizations is protected 10% do not know where their data is stored, 3% do not have owners assigned for all the data and none monitor all data access.

"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," says Gibson.

Tags: data handling, data protection, data security