2012 Business Data Loss Survey: Cibecs and IDG release the results

Every year Cibecs runs the Business Data Loss Survey, uncovering the major IT challenges around business data protection, and providing industry insight and data loss statistics. Last year’s survey results were read by over 50 000 IT Professionals.

The 2011 survey uncovered massive data loss – with 50% of respondents revealing that they had lost data in the last year. While it is true that most companies had server backup solutions in place, focus was, and still is, shifting to user data stored on desktops and laptops, and the protection thereof. This is where a backup and recovery vacuum exists – leaving business data vulnerable to multiple risks.

Some of the topics covered in the 2012 data loss survey:

• How businesses are protecting data in 2012, and technologies that are changing the business backup landscape.

• The effect of BYOD on business data protection and management.

• The impact and prevalence of data loss in 2012

The 2012 Data Loss Survey Press Release: The Data Loss Statistics

Cibecs data protection & IDG Connect have released the 2012 Data Loss Survey, outlining the shifts taking place in business data protection, and how IT consumerization is affecting data management.

One of the defining results in this year’s survey was the increase in mobile workers from last year’s 50% of professionals using laptops as their primary device up to 60% in 2012. Tablets however are as expected more of a consumption tool, with only 2% of those surveyed using tablets as their primary work device.

The increasing number of mobile workers means more mobile data, resulting in IT needing to look for endpoint-focused data protection, automating laptop backups and reducing the overhead costs expectant when backing up mobile workers.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is becoming increasingly prevalent in modern enterprise environments, 40% of this year’s respondents allow BYOD in their organization, however only a small percentage (3%) of IT executives see this as their biggest data protection hurdle. Instead, the increasing number of mobile workers and User non-compliance to business backup policies are seen as two of the biggest data protection challenges.

It seems that companies are still failing to see the importance of an effective and automated data backup solution, with 37% of the over 200 companies having no protection against unauthorized access to their data if lost and only 69% of those surveyed being able to recover lost files a concerning data loss statistic.

There is also a concerning number of businesses employing antiquated data protection strategies where they rely on users to backup their own data. Of the companies who employ a company policy instructing user’s to backup to either a central server or external hard-drive, 94% have reported that users don’t follow policy. This then leaves these organization’s at massive risk, and further, results in Corporate Governance non-compliance and can mean costly data loss disasters.

Just over 10% of companies surveyed have reported using a Cloud backup solution. Most of these businesses have fewer than 100 users. 37% have employed a secure and automated backup solution, which is the most reliable data protection solution.

The perceived value of business data this year was interesting, with 35% of professionals placing the value of their business data at over $10 000 and less than 17% believing their data is worth less than $2 000. Clearly, although organizations are falling short of data protection best practice, individuals understand the value of their data.

For more results and data loss statistics, get your complimentary copy of the 2012 Data Loss Survey White Paper

More statistics around data loss