While the amount of corporate data is growing at an alarming rate, IT personnel cannot guarantee its security. Data loss is therefore a major problem, affecting one in two organizations globally. These are the findings based on research conducted by Rubrik Zero Labs.
The research took place worldwide and is presented in the report “The State of Data Security: The Journey to Secure an Uncertain Future.” More than 1,600 IT and security decision makers participated, each representing companies of 500 or more employees. Respondents from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Singapore and India took part.
The usefulness of data, thanks in part to the rise of AI, is increasing dramatically. However, only 4 percent of organizations worldwide have a dedicated storage location for all data, an essential factor in securing it. Therefore, it is not too surprising that 98 percent of companies see “significant challenges” in maintaining data visibility. 66 percent of those surveyed indicate that data growth is also too fast to keep up with it at the security level. To top it off, two in three respondents believe employees are accessing data “in violation of the organization’s data policy.”
Grim reality
The result of this lack of oversight and control is clear. Rubrik speaks of a “grim reality” in which one in two organizations has lost sensitive data in the past 12 months. In fact, one in six has experienced this multiple times in the same period. This mostly involves the loss of personal data (37 percent), corporate financial data (37 percent) and intellectual property (35 percent).
The sheer volume of data produced is important to stress. An average organization has produced 240 backend terabytes by now, according to Rubrik, which is set to increase at a rate of 7x over the next five years. This data now resides in multiple locations, spread across on-prem, in the cloud and in SaaS environments. SaaS data is growing the fastest: in eighteen months, its volume has increased 145 percent. Cloud data (73 percent) and on-prem (20 percent) are showing lesser, but still significant, growth.
Big data
“The rapid data growth we see is largely due to the increasing use of big data, combined with artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and increasingly personal data generated by devices. In addition, rapid data growth also affects both sides of the cybersecurity battlefield – including the myriad ways attacks are executed and how our systems execute rapid responses, from posture management to data security,” said Steven Stone, head of Rubrik Zero Labs. “Today’s proliferation of data is capable of shutting down entire organizations if nothing is done. Organizations must have the right understanding of their data to secure it, with a clear plan for cyber resilience that provides business continuity.”
In the report, Rubrik outlines best practices to prevent distress. It can be accessed here. The company itself looked at 5,000 customers across 22 industries and 67 countries to supplement the research findings with telemetry.
Also read: Rubrik AI assistant Ruby helps increase cyber resilience
2 days ago
