2023 THALES
DATA THREAT REPORT

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 United States federal (U.S. federal) market, and briefly discuss the opportunities and challenges of digital sovereignty and recommendations for the future.

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Key Findings - U.S. Federal
 

We’re only human

The #1 root cause of cloud data breach is human error.
 

In response, organizations are empowering their users to avoid errors. Only 54% of U.S. federal respondents report strong multi-factor authentication adoption, 11 percentage points lower than the worldwide result, and 34% of respondents say that identity and access management is the top security technology most effective in 54% protecting sensitive data from cyberattacks, illustrating a growing focus on reducing the risks due to human error.

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Post quantum cryptography moves further from the academic to the real world

63%of U.S. federal respondents say network decryption is the quantum computing security threat of greatest concern, similar to the global average.

 

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Digital Sovereignty is an emerging strategic initiative

92%of U.S. federal 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.

51%of U.S. federal organizations have at least 5 enterprise key management systems, 11 percentage points lower than the global result (62%), adding to the complexity.

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57% of U.S. federal respondent organizations have a formal RANSOMWARE response plan, a slight increase from 2022 (51%) when we first asked.

 

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