With tougher laws and more leaks and breaches happening, you might be surprised to learn that only 30% of businesses bother with encryption.
With laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becoming law and recent statistics saying that authorities receiving 95,000 complaints, you’d think that businesses would do the basics and look into encrypting their data to protect their users. According to a new survey, that assumption would be incorrect.
According to a new survey, only 30% of businesses even bother with encryption at all. From CBROnline:
Despite a wealth of recent high profile data breaches, fewer than 30 percent of enterprises encrypt data across their on-premises data environments, within their cloud providers or on their mobile devices.
That’s according to French aerospace and security multinational Thales Group’s 2019 Data Threat Report, released this morning.
Its survey found that the danger of a breach occurring is high, with 60 percent of companies surveyed admitting that they had been compromised.
The survey also found that 44% of businesses cite complexity as the number one reason why they are not securing their information. That finding adds to a disturbing security picture. A study last month said that 58% of UK businesses couldn’t even detect a data breach.
When you look at both the study and the survey, it’s not hard to get the impression that a lot of businesses have the attitude that security is hard, so I’m not going to bother with it. If a breach happens, who cares? If we get caught, those fines are simply the cost of doing business. Obviously, not every business out there has that attitude, but the data is starting to show this attitude is showing among a number of them.
This, of course, is going to cause more headlines of various companies to be fined in the long run. Already, Google is facing a $57 million fine in Europe (though Google said it will appeal). This goes over and above the countless other data leaks and breaches already being reported. All one has to do is browse through our security category to see just how riddled with security carnage history has displayed in the last year or so.
Unfortunately, we’re going to continue to see these leaks and breaches continue because so many businesses don’t actually take steps to secure their information. As a results, consumers will continue to pay the price for the foreseeable future.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
