British businesses 'aren't cyber-resilient'

The majority of UK businesses surveyed for a new report on ‘cyber resilience’ have admitted they still have a long way to go, despite the wider take up of cloud computing and the forthcoming introduction of new regulations on data protection.

The Cyber Resilient Organisation in the United Kingdom: Learning to Thrive against Threats report found that seven out of 10 of the organisations it quizzed classed their resilience as low. Just 29 per cent rated their resilience as high and only 36 per cent said they were confident their business could recover from the effects of a cyber attack.

The research, carried out by data protection and privacy consultants the Ponemon Institute, found that 65 per cent of respondents believed that the lack of protection was due to budgetary and staffing constraints. The report also found a lack of coordination of who was responsible for ensuring that data was protected.

Potential data breaches were one of the main issues that originally slowed the uptake in cloud computing among businesses. While more organisations have now taken onboard the value of the cloud to their operations, the findings of the report are worrying. It’s particularly pertinent as the UK will be required to meet the demands of the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation, which is due to be in place by 2018, and firms that suffer data breaches will face sizeable fines.

Larry Ponemon of the Ponemon Institute said: “Despite the growing importance of cyber resilience, the research shows serious issues that need to be addressed if UK organisations are to survive the next wave of cyber-attacks.

“Until cyber resilience becomes a coordinated, organisation-wide effort and the necessary technology and processes are put in place, organisations will remain vulnerable.”

Businesses looking to move services into the cloud, should evaluate the performance of their existing network and consider setting up a leased line or MPLS network.