IT budgets increase amid growing concern about impact of data breaches on brand reputation
London, UK, InfoSec – April 23 , 2013 – Vormetric, the leading data - centric security solution provider for physical, virtual and cloud environments, today announced the preliminary* findings of its “Protect What Matters – Data S ecurity” research. With more than 450 responses gathered from a global online survey targeted at IT professionals, the research details newer IT trends and data breaches as primary security drivers. The research also highlights that protecting brand reputation and observing security best practices should be organisations’ primary motivators for data protection, while meeting compliance requirements also remains a major driver facing IT today.
Click to Tweet: Vormetric survey finds 52% of organisations driven to secure data by IT security challenges #ProtectWhatMatters #DataSecurity #Infosec13
“The security landscape has evolved considerably over the past 18 months. With advanced persistent th reats recurring headline news, and as more organisations embrace them erits of cloud computing and Big Data, it is essential that enterprises ensure their IT infrastructure is geared up to keep pace with the changing market,” said Tina Stewart, Vice President of Marketing, Vormetric. “ We wanted to conduct this research to assess the extent to which organisations’ security measures and motivations reflect these changes, and overall the study reveals that organisations are reassuringly starting to move in this direction.”
The online global survey gathered responses across a full range of markets – banking/financial services, retail, manufacturing, public sector and others. Key findings include:
- Defending against IT security challenges is the primary security driver for more than half of respondents
While compliance is still a strong security driver, newer IT trends – such as Big Data, cloud, BYOD and mobile security – accounted for a full 36 percent of respondent’s choices, and 16 percent of respondents selected ‘data breaches’ as the primary data security driver at their organisation. Given that 52 percent of the respondents called out drivers other than compliance, it’s clear that organisations’ security strategies are governed by the need to protect against an increasingly complex array of IT challenges. - Respondents feel that p rotecting brand reputation and observing security best practices should be the primary motivations f or data protection
Nearly two thirds of respondents (64 percent) believed that protecting the company’s reputation (32 percent) and implementing best practice security measures (32 percent) should be the primary motivation for data security within their o rganisation ; meeting compliance requirements came in third at 22 percent. This highlights that IT p rofessionals recogni s e that compliance alone is not enough to protect their organi s ation. As targeted attacks have proliferated , organi s ations around the w orld are recognising the requirement to adjust their security posture to keep ahead of current threats. - IT security b udgets are rising at a large number of organisations
Faced with the challenge of securing newer technologies like Big Data and cloud, the budgets at many of the respondents’ organisations (42 percent) have increased or remained static (39 percent). Only 6 percent of respondents reported that their IT Security budget has been reduced, while 13 percent didn’t know. - Respondents name server e ncryption as the key focal point for IT data security investment over the next 12 months
Core elements of a data-centric security strategy that protects information where it resides are encryption with access controls to lock down and control access to critical information, combined with log management and database activity monitoring (DAM) to identify unusual usage patterns that may represent a new advanced persistent threat (APT) attack, or malicious insider. The survey shows organisation s as investing in these areas with 40 percent investing in server encryption and 33 percent investing in both log management and DAM.
“Protecting brand reputation is a particularly widespread security driver among the respondents and, as recent high profile hack incide nts have demonstrated, a business’ reputation is very much at stake,” continued Vormetric’s Stewar. “ Organisations need to deploy security measures as close to the data as possible, especially sensitive data that resides on servers. That means implementing data-centric security solutions that combine protections for critical data using encryption and access controls, coupled with detailed access information that will allow a SIEM solution to identify advanced threats, compromised accounts and malicious insiders. Our survey’s findings indicate that organisations are beginning to understand the business value of implementing security best practices like these — but thought and action are two different things. For organisations that want to avoid becoming the next high-profile victim of a cyber attack, the time to protect what matters is now.”
* Vormetric’s research , “Protect What Matters – data security”, was conducted via an online survey tool and promoted globally to IT security professionals. The company has collected responses from 454 participants across a number of industries and countries, and will deliver a full report in May 2013.
About Vormetric
Vormetric (@Vormetric) is the industry leader in data security solutions that span physical, virtual and cloud environments. Data is the new currency and Vormetric helps enterprise customers and government agencies protect what matters — their sensitive data — from both internal and external threats. In a world of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), Vormetric’s market - leading privileged user access controls and security intelligence are invaluable. The company's scalable solution suite protects any file, any database and any application — anywhere it resides — while maintaining application performance and avoiding key management complexity. Many of the world's largest and most security-conscious organizations and government agencies, including 17 of the Fortune 25, have standardized on Vormetric to protect their sensitive data and provide them with advanced security intelligence.
Media Contacts:
Vormetric USA
Monika Hathaway
Sterling Communications
+1(408) 395-5500
vormetric@sterlingpr.comVormetric UK/EMEA
Jonathan Mathias / Kasia Murphy
Johnson King
+44 (0)20 7401 7968
VormetricTeam@johnsonking.co.ukVormetric South Korea
Mina Jeong
M&K PR
+82 2 566-8898
itpr@mincomm.com
Vormetric is a trademark of Vormetric, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.