Global businesses continue to house ‘dark data' within their
organizations, creating a honeypot for cybercriminals, finds research from
Veritas Technologies, a worldwide leader in enterprise data protection and
software-defined storage.
The Value of Data study, conducted by Vanson Bourne
for Veritas, surveyed 1,500 IT decision makers and data managers across 15
countries. It reveals that on average, over half (52 percent) of all data
within organizations remains unclassified or untagged, indicating that
businesses have limited or no visibility over vast volumes of potentially
business-critical data, creating a ripe target for hackers.
Classifying data enables organizations to quickly scan and tag data to
ensure that sensitive or risky information is properly managed and protected,
regardless of where that data lives. This broad visibility into data helps
companies comply with ever-increasing and stringent data protection regulations
that require discrete retention policies be implemented and enforced across an
organization's entire data estate.
Public cloud and mobile environments represent the weakest
links in data security, with the majority of data across these environments
most likely to be left unclassified and potentially unprotected. Just five
percent of companies claim to have classified all of their data in the public
cloud, while only six percent have classified all of the data that sits on
mobile devices. Three in five (61 percent) companies admit they have classified
less than half of their public cloud data, while over two-thirds (67 percent)
have classified less than half of the data that sits on mobile devices.
Veritas' previous Truth in Cloud research revealed that an
alarming majority (69 percent) of organizations wrongfully believe data
protection, data privacy and compliance are the responsibility of their cloud
service providers, although cloud provider contracts usually place data
management responsibility on businesses.
"As workforces become more mobile and the barriers between work and
personal life break down, company data has become dispersed across numerous
environments," said Jyothi Swaroop, vice president, Product & Solutions,
Veritas. "When data is fragmented across an organization and has not been
properly tagged, it is more likely to go ‘dark', threatening the company's
reputation and market share if it falls foul of data protection regulations
such as GDPR. So it's vital that organizations take full responsibility for
ensuring their data is effectively managed and protected."
The dark age of data
Organizations consider strengthening data security (64
percent), improving data visibility and control (39 percent) and guaranteeing
regulatory compliance (32 percent) among their top key drivers for day-to-day
data management. Yet the majority of respondents admit that their organization
still needs to make improvements in all of these areas.
"A company's dark data reservoir may be out of sight and out of mind for
many organizations, but it's an enticing target for cybercriminals and
ransomware attacks. The more organizations know about the data they hold, the
better they will be at judging its value or risk," added Swaroop. "But with the
average company holding billions of data files, manually classifying and
tagging data is beyond human capability. Businesses must implement data
management tools with algorithms, machine learning, policies and processes that
can help manage, protect and gain valuable insights from their data, regardless
of where it sits in their organization."
To learn more about how Veritas can help global organizations protect their data
and bottom line, download the full report here.