More than one in five experienced a security breach in the last 12 months
London (UK): A global study of more than 1,200 IT professionals in EMEA rereleased this week reveals that, in the last year, more than one in five enterprises has experienced a security breach and one in 10 has suffered a privacy breach. Nearly half of enterprises (45%) said their enterprises either delayed or even missed an opportunity to reduce costs as a result of an IT-related problem or incident. With exactly half of the organisations reporting an IT staff shortage, these issues are likely to continue.
The study, conducted by global nonprofit professional association ISACA, also found that 42% of organisations believed customer satisfaction had been reduced in the last 12 months due to an IT-related problem or incident. Additionally, 42% had incurred unexpected expenses and 18% believed their reputation had been harmed due to IT issues. Ten percent even had a competitor beat them to market due to IT complications. When looking at specific problems organisations had experienced, 35% had faced inadequate disaster recovery or business continuity measures, and 17% suffered a serious IT operations incident.
When asked about the issue most likely to impact their enterprise’s security in the next year, top answers were data leakage (17%), cyberattacks (15%), inadvertent employee mistakes (17%), incidents related to “bring your own device” (BYOD) (13%) and cloud computing (11%). Fifteen percent said all of these issues were top concerns, and 9% believed that none of these are concerns.
“Today, it is critical for enterprise leaders to recognize information management and IT as a business issue. The survey shows that more than a third of respondents still report a disconnect between the information and business strategies,” said Dr. Derek Oliver, CEO of Ravenswood Consultants Ltd., co-chair of ISACA’s COBIT 5 Task Force and past president of the ISACA London Chapter. “Using a business framework for IT governance, such as COBIT 5, will help clarify the roles of the business and information, and provide a common language and set of goals to get everyone on the same page.”