Thales has released its 2020 Data Threat Report, which suggests that organizations need to be more careful when going through a digital transformation. The report specifically found that companies that were the furthest along in their digital transformation were the most likely to have experienced a breach at some point in the past year.
The report was put together with feedback from 1,723 international executives who are in some way responsible for digital security and IT. Every single respondent indicated that at least some of the sensitive information stored in their organization’s cloud was not encrypted, which is an issue since half of all corporate data is now stored in the cloud, and nearly half (48 percent) of that data is considered sensitive.
Of course, some of the current vulnerability can be attributed to the sheer complexity of modern digital infrastructure. The vast majority (81 percent) of organizations have more than one Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service vendor, which means that companies now have more access points that they need to monitor.
Thales advises companies to invest in better cloud security tools, centralize key management functions, utilize data encryption, and adopt a zero-trust security model to combat the problem.
“As organizations face more complex cybersecurity challenges, they need smarter and better ways to approach data protection,” said IDC Cybersecurity Products VP Frank Dickson. IDC provided research and analysis for the Thales report.
“Having the right cloud security in place has never been more critical,” added Thales Global Market Strategy VP Tina Stewart. “Data should be encrypted and protected with a strong multi-cloud key management strategy.”
The report found that companies are slightly less intimidated by cloud technology than they were a year ago, although most (72 percent) believed that quantum computing would start to have an impact on their security practices within the next five years. It also noted that 54 percent of financial services providers had dealt with a security breach in the past year. The numbers were 52, 49, and 37 percent for the government, retail, and healthcare sectors respectively.
Thales recently teamed up with Verint to produce a Cyberthreat Handbook to teach companies about the current cybersecurity landscape. The company has also released new authentication devices that enable passwordless log ins for Azure AD apps and services.
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