The latest survey from Channel Islands IT services provider Logicalis shows that data security is one of the biggest risks for businesses worldwide.
The Logicalis Global Chief Information Officer Survey 2016 polled 708 CIOs worldwide and found that the combination of the internet of things, distributed IT and the increased pervasion of apps into the core of the business represent a perfect security storm.
The CIOs cited security as by far the biggest challenge, related to the increased use of cloud services. The results from the survey include:
• More than three quarters surveyed (78 per cent) pointed to security as a challenge, with related issues like such as sovereignty (47 per cent) and local data regulations (37 per cent) coming in second and third.
• The majority of those surveyed expect the prevalence of increasingly sophisticated threats (61 per cent) to be the number one issue in the next 12 months, while issues including ransomware and corporate extortion were highlighted by more than half (56 per cent).
• This year a quarter (24 per cent) of CIOs said they outsource more than 50 per cent of their IT. The number outsourcing none or just 10 per cent of their IT has fallen dramatically – respectively to nine per cent (13 per cent in 2015) and 19 per cent (26 per cent in 2015).
Ricky Magalhaes, Head of Offshore Security at Logicalis, said: "We are seeing at least one attack a week and companies are just not prepared.
“The bigger the organisation, the more likelihood there is of it happening, but we are also finding that smaller businesses are on the receiving end. In the Channel Islands, the finance industry is the prime target. However, all businesses are vulnerable to attack.”
Jersey Police revealed last week that more than 30 per cent of fraud cases reported to it in 2014 and 2015 were the result of cybercrime.
• To read more about the survey click here