Rubrik‘s study, “The State of Data Security by Rubrik Zero Labs: The Hard Truths of Data Security”, examined the state of play in the data security landscape over the past year, and found that almost all IT and security leaders (96 per cent) globally were concerned around maintenance of business continuity following a cyber attack.

Legacy backup and recovery solutions proved to be continuous barriers towards effective data security, with nine in ten companies revealing they had experienced backup breaches during a cyber attack — 73 per cent were reported as partially successful.

Meanwhile, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of organisations surveyed reported paying a ransomware demand, and just 16 per cent recovered all data via attacker decryption tools.

Data security is becoming increasingly complex, due to a combination of evolving threat tactics and dataset growth, made evident by organisations securing 25 per cent more data on average last year (on premises grew 19 per cent; cloud grew 61 per cent; and SaaS data secured grew 236 per cent).

Only 56 per cent of IT and security leaders developed or reviewed an incident response plan in 2022, with just 54 per cent testing backup and recovery options, demonstrating that uptake of data security innovation is being left behind by cyber threats.

Another challenge being faced by businesses across the world is insufficient security budgets — almost half (47 per cent) of IT and security leaders believe their 2023 cybersecurity budget is not enough of an investment, while 27 per cent expect their IT and cybersecurity budgets to decrease this year.

“It’s clear organisations understand the gravity and impact of cyber incidents, but we also see a range of roadblocks from a lack of preparation, misalignment between IT and security teams, and over-reliance on insufficient backup and recovery solutions,” said Steven Stone, head of Rubrik Zero Labs.

“In the current era of cybersecurity, the best outcome is ensuring cyber resilience. Incidents are inevitable, so it’s critical to reduce the risk before a response is needed, and — at all costs — protect the crown jewel: the data.”

1,625 IT and security leaders based across 10 countries — half of which were CIOs and CISOs — were surveyed by cloud data management and security vendor Rubrik for its study.

Related:

The importance of zero trust architecture during economic uncertainty — Here’s how organisations can balance the needs for cost optimisation and security with a zero trust architecture.

Operational resilience is much more than cyber security — Exploring the facets of operational resilience that organisations need to take into account.