Perspectives and Pathways to
Sovereignty and Transformation
Despite the economic and geopolitical tensions that arose in 2022, enterprises continued to invest in their operations and their digital transformation. Organizations balanced security and privacy risks with opportunities opened by new technologies and business models. The 2023 Thales Global Data Threat Report, conducted with nearly 3,000 respondents across 18 countries, in roles ranging from senior executive leaders to individual practitioners, illustrates how influencers and decision-makers manage this balance; considers their attitudes, perceptions, realities and expectations for the years ahead; looks at the influencers and decision-makers driving enterprise security policies and practices; and highlights changes over time. This report includes a supplement focused on the Europe and Middle East (EME) region, and briefly discuss the opportunities and challenges of digital sovereignty and points to consider for the future.
Analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence, based on a survey of nearly 3,000 security professionals worldwide
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2023 Thales Data Threat Report – Global Edition
The 2023 Data Threat Report highlights human error as a primary cause of data breaches, the growing importance of digital sovereignty, and the challenges faced in securing multicloud environments. With improving security attitudes but lagging outcomes, organizations are focusing on stronger MFA adoption to protect sensitive data.
Key Findings - Europe and Middle East Region
We’re only human

The #1 root cause of cloud data breach is human error.
In response, enterprises are empowering their users to avoid errors. Strong MFA adoption in EME has increased to 67% up 12 percentage points from 2022, and 27% of respondents identify IAM as the top security technology most effective in 67% protecting sensitive data from cyberattacks reflecting an increased focus on eliminating human error as a security weakness.
Post quantum cryptography moves further from the academic to the real world
61%of EME respondents say network decryption is the quantum computing security threat of greatest concern, 1 percentage point lower than the global consensus.
Digital Sovereignty is an emerging strategic initiative
95%of EME respondents say designating or changing the location and jurisdiction of data or implementing full data encryption are acceptable measures to achieve various levels of digital sovereignty.
64%of EME organizations have at least five enterprise enterprise key management systems, slightly higher than the global percentage (62%), adding to the complexity.
47% of EME organizations have a formal RANSOMWARE response plan, nearly unchanged from 48% in 2022 when we first asked.
Global Edition
2023 Thales Data Threat Report
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