About half of organisations surveyed suffered a loss of sensitive data over a 12-month stretch and, worse, one in every six firms experienced multiple losses of data in that period.
Rubrik commissioned Wakefield Research to survey more than 1,600 CIOs and CISOs at companies of 500 or more employees across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and India, between June 30 and July 11 this year.
Results show that 53% of organisations surveyed experienced a material loss of sensitive information in the last year, with 16% experiencing multiple losses.
The study also found that a typical organisation’s data has grown 42% over the last 18 months. SaaS data drove the most growth overall (145%) followed by cloud (73%) and on-premises (20%), as observed in the Rubrik Zero Labs Report (2023).
On average, a typical organisation’s data volume totals 240 backend terabytes (BETB). Rubrik Zero Labs predicts that the total volume of data a typical organisation needs to secure will increase by almost 100 BETB in the next year — and by seven times in the next five years.
The study also found that global organisations have 24.8 million sensitive data records, observed on average.
Three in every five (61%) of organisations surveyed store sensitive data in multiple locations across cloud, on-premises, and SaaS environments, with less than 4% reporting a dedicated, sensitive data storage location.
The most widely-reported data types compromised included personally identifiable information (38%), corporate financial data (37%), and authentication credentials (32%).
Further, 66% of IT and security leaders surveyed believe their organisation’s current data growth is outpacing their ability to secure this data and manage risk.
Almost all (98%) external organisations surveyed believe they currently have significant data visibility challenges.
Three in every five (62%) of respondents suspect people inside their organisation are accessing data in violation of data policies.
More than half (54%) of external organisations surveyed have an appointed single senior executive responsible for data and its security.
Steven Stone, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, said the explosive growth in data is due to increasing use of big data tied to artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and the increasingly common use of personal data generated by devices.
“Furthermore, it is rapidly changing both sides of the cybersecurity battlefront – including the myriad of ways that attacks are carried out and how our systems execute rapid response, from posture management to data security,” said Stone.
“We see that left unattended, today’s data proliferation can cripple businesses,” he added. “Organisations need to have the right visibility into their data to secure it, with a clear plan for cyber resilience that delivers business continuity.”
