The new digital transformation era seems to be an era of increased security risks as well.
The new era of digital transformation, in which organizations all the world over seek to embrace new technologies, is also an era in which organizations are struggling to implement and attain proper data security. This is what a new report seems to be suggesting.
As per the 2019 Thales Data Threat Report, a majority of organizations are facing such risks. The report also reveals some rather shocking things about encryption adoption.
The Security Magazine, in a detailed post on the 2019 Thales Data Threat Report, says, “The 2019 Thales Data Threat Report notes that 97 percent of the survey respondents reported their organization was already underway with some level of digital transformation and, with that, confirmed they are using and exposing sensitive data within these environments. Aggressive digital transformers are most at risk for data breaches, but alarmingly, the study finds that less than a third of respondents (only 30%) are using encryption within these environments. The study also found a few key areas where encryption adoption and usage are above average: IoT (42%), Containers (47%) and Big Data (45%).”
The Thales Data Threat report points out that protecting sensitive data is becoming increasingly complex as companies move to cloud or multi-cloud environments in this era of digital transformation. 90 percent of respondents covered in the survey are either using, or will be using, some type of cloud environment. 44 percent of such companies have the opinion that the complexity of the cloud environment is a perceived barrier to implementing proper data security measures.
The report also discusses how enterprises fail to address properly the issue of security even in the wake of an increase in the incidence of data breaches. Enterprises are still not investing in protection, the report points out. Almost 60 percent of organizations admit having been breached at some point in their history and almost 30 percent admit having experienced a breach in the last one year. Most organizations today feel vulnerable to data threats, but still this concern doesn’t seem to translate into security best practices. The Security Magazine quotes the survey results, stating, “The bottom line is that whatever technologies an organization deploys to make digital transformation happen, the easy and timely access to data puts this data at risk internally and externally. The majority of organizations, 86%, feel vulnerable to data threats. Unfortunately, this does not always translate into security best practices as evidenced by the less than 30% of respondents using encryption as part of their digital transformation strategy.”