Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 11 August 2009 09:01
Business IT -
Technology
Page 1 of 2
Almost 70 percent of Australian businesses and organisations were hit by one or more data breach incidents in the past year, a major increase on the situation in the previous 12 months.
IT security professionals at 482 enterprises
were surveyed and 69 percent of the organisations had been hit once or
more – up from 56 percent in the previous year – while the number of
firms (41%) experiencing multiple breaches, or more than two data loss
incidents, rose by 28 percent over the previous year.
Data protection company, PGP Corporation, has released the results of
the second annual study by The Ponemon Institute, which also revealed
that of those organisations that did admit to a breach in the last 12
months, 65 percent were never publically announced, as there was no
legal or regulatory requirement to disclose the incidents.
Despite the rising number of data breaches, PGP says Australian
organisations are aware of the consequences of such incidents, with 66%
of respondents stating that data protection played an ‘important’ or
‘very important’ role in an organisation’s overall risk management
efforts, with 57 percent felt encryption helped them meet privacy
commitments and 70 percent believed encryption was a critical factor in
protecting a company’s reputation.
According to Dr Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon
Institute, the institute had found that throughout the world, “breaches
are on the rise as well in the Australian market where they increased
13 percent year over year.
“There is encouraging news in the Australian market, 85% of the
respondents stated that when they take a strategic approach to their
encryption applications and use a platform approach it increases the
effectiveness and efficiency of their IT security program.”
Dr Ponemon said the primary benefits of the platform approach to
managing encryption across the enterprise include reducing operational
costs, eliminating redundant administrator tasks and supporting the
development of a strategic encryption strategy.
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