UK firms "not prepared" for data breaches

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A large proportion of British businesses are unprepared to deal with the effects of a data breach, new findings have shown.

Research from business improvement firm BSI found that as many as one in six companies across Europe, including UK firms have no plans in place for tackling data breaches.

The lack of awareness is even more alarming given the report, carried out in support of Cybersecurity Awareness month, found that 39 per cent of organisations have experienced a data breach in the last 12 months.

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Overall, the report, which surveyed businesses across Europe, found that 73 percent of companies were concerned about their security protection. 

Migrating to the cloud was identified as a particular pain point for businesses, with Shadow IT threats named as the biggest concern. 68 percent of companies said that data loss was the main threat facing their organisation, followed by unauthorised applications (15 per cent) and unauthorized devices (nine percent).

“Training and education is essential when it comes to achieving information resilience and it’s reassuring to see that organisations are actively implementing awareness programmes in the workplace," said Stephen O’Boyle, global head of cybersecurity and information resilience services at BSI. 

"However, being proactive about cybersecurity is a company’s best defence and it is unfortunate to see that one in six organisations are unprepared for a breach and that over a third of companies aren’t partaking in cybersecurity testing within their organisation.”

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