The statistics which highlight why you need to protect your business from data loss

Businesses are creating and storing an increasing amount of data and it’s crucial that this information is protected at all times.

Firstly, you don’t want to risk data being leaked – if this happens, customers’ personal information becomes public and this would be a huge PR disaster for your company. Secondly, when you’re continually working hard to collect data, even losing a week’s worth of information can come at a huge cost.

If you’re still unsure about whether or not to invest in data backup and recovery systems, below are some startling statistics which highlight exactly why you need to protect your business from data loss.

• In a report generated by international company, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, it was found that an incredible seven out of 10 small firms who experience major data loss go out of business within one year.
• If you think that data loss is something that won’t ever happen to you, you’re probably more at risk than you think. Research and advisory firm, Gartner (https://www.gartner.com/en) warns that 25% of PC users experience data loss every year and 15% of all laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures.
• Despite the huge risk to companies, it’s estimated that a whopping 96% of all business workstations are not being backed up. Amongst those that do have some kind of system in place, 34% fail to test their tape backups and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.

The vice president of security research at Trend Micro, Rik Ferguson commented:

“While UK businesses increasingly recognise the reality, scale and impact of a targeted attack, the initial data reveals that much more can and should be done when it comes to testing their readiness to deal with them.”

• Research carried out by Trend Micro and Quocirca last year found that UK organisations are up to 40% more likely to be subjected to cyber-attacks than their European counterparts. Furthermore, of the 500 high-level IT experts who were interviewed for the research, 64% said they believe that targeted cyber-attacks have increased in the past year.
• Last year, UK companies reported that they had been subjected to an average of nearly nine attacks over the past 12 months. The average cost of this to each company was a staggering £172,000.
• Last year, UK tech job website, Technojobs said that there has been a huge demand in increase for cyber-security professionals.
• According to statistics which have been obtained by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, (https://ico.org.uk/) human error is the main cause of data breaches. Human error accounts for almost two-thirds (62%) of all incidents reported to the ICO. Other causes such as insecure web pages and hacking even when combined, only contribute towards 9% of all attacks.
• The most common type of breach occurred as a result of someone sending data to the wrong person (17%). A further 17% of breaches came from loss and theft of paperwork whilst in 9% of cases, information was emailed to the wrong person.
• Other types of data breach include insecure disposal of hardware and paperwork, loss or theft of unencrypted devices and failure to redact data.

Many companies are now using the services of a data centres to store their data. Most data centres offer colocation solutions which gives businesses the flexibility they need for their IT solutions in a safe and secure environment.