Even with data holding an increasingly important place in the enterprise, many organizations continue to struggle with protecting business-critical information and some have given up trying altogether. A recent report by EMC revealed that many CIOs lack confidence in their ability to recover data after a malicious intrusion and a great number don’t even have a plan in place to attempt such a recovery.
The EMC Global Data Protection Index, which surveyed more than 3,000 IT decision-makers in 25 countries, found that the cost of data loss is growing and the enterprise capacity to prevent it is decreasing. According to the report, data loss and downtime cost businesses nearly $2 trillionover the last 12 months – an amount equivalent to half of Germany’s GDP. The study also found that data loss has increased by 400 percent since 2012 and 71 percent of organizations report a lack of confidence in their ability to recover from a disruptive event.
The Protection Index did find that the overall number of data loss incidents is on the decline, but this is likely because the volume of data lost in a single event is increasing exponentially. Nearly two-thirds of enterprises surveyed reported experiencing data loss or downtime during the last year. According to the study, the average enterprise lost more than three working days to unexpected downtime in the last 12 months, while 36 percent experienced loss of revenue and 34 percent had to deal with delays in product development.
EMC researchers discovered that new enterprise technologies like big data, mobile devices and hybrid cloud platforms are partly to blame for the increase in data loss, as many organizations do not have the resources to meet the challenges created by these trends. Over half of the businesses surveyed said they lacked a disaster recovery plan for any of the aforementioned environments and only 6 percent of respondents said they have a recovery plan for all three areas. Participants reported having an especially hard time protecting data involved in these categories, with 62 percent rating them as difficult to protect. This is troubling news for many companies, as 30 percent of all primary data resides in some form of cloud storage environment, potentially resulting in massive data loss.
Enterprises realize need for improved security, don’t know how to start
While it’s obvious that businesses need to improve their data protection strategies, the study revealed that many are going about it the wrong way. A large portion of organizations turn to multiple security firms to increase their information security, but it appears as though a siloed approach is actually more dangerous than having no approach at all. Companies employing three or more vendors to supply data protection solutions lost three times as much information as those who deployed a unified strategy through a single provider.
In order to receive the necessary data protection without going to numerous different vendors for solutions, organizations should implement a layered security solution. Anti-Virus software from Faronics makes it possible for businesses to defend against disruptive events by employing multiple defense techniques, including firewalls, anti-rootkit, anti-spyware and Web filtering. As a complement to an anti-virus program, enterprises can also implement application whitelisting software to strengthen cybersecurity defenses even more. By combining anti-virus and application whitelisting software with reboot to restore software like Faronics Deep Freeze, businesses are able to ensure they have the tools necessary to defend against cyberthreats and keep their data safe.
