Over two-thirds of French companies hit by data breach incidents

2009-09-14

More than two-thirds of French organisations have been hit by at least one data breach in the past 12 months, research has found.

This may concern those firms seeking to protect themselves from an IT intrusion, as a PGP Corporation study, carried out by the Ponemon Institute, revealed that 18 per cent of French organisations have been hit by over five data breach incidents.

Despite this, 71 per cent of respondents to a survey involved in the study said that data protection was a very important or important part of their risk management strategy, while 45 per cent said that loss or theft of confidential or sensitive information will be one of the major security threats of the next 12 to 24 months.

Respondents ranked protecting sensitive or confidential data in transfer or in storage as their top priority.

However, just nine per cent of organisations have an overall encryption plan or strategy that is applied consistently across the whole company, while 45 per cent do not have an encryption plan or strategy at all.

Dr Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, commented: "It is very encouraging to see that 71 percent of respondents view data protection as a critical part of their overall risk management plan. However, the low percentage of French organisations having an overall encryption strategy in place or using a platform approach to encryption suggests that there are still considerable improvements to be made."

He added that in 2010, companies should focus on "applying a strategic approach to data security" throughout the whole business.

Other data from the survey revealed that the majority (92 per cent) of the data breach incidents were not disclosed as there was no legal or regulatory requirement to do so.

Last month, another study from PGP Corporation and the Ponemon Institute revealed that 69 per cent of Australian firms have been hit by a data breach in the past year.

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