UK firms have no data breach response plan

Two new reports show that in spite of one third of firms in the UK experiencing a breach within the past 12 months, most companies underestimate what is needed in response to incidents.

Experian and BlueCoat both published reports showing the reality of cyber security practices of firms in the UK, including findings that companies do not have the necessary incident response measures in place, or implement suitable security and risk assessments.

In the research, which saw 1,580 information security professionals surveyed, BlueCoat discovered that close to one third of firms in the UK confessed to at least one data breach within the past 12 months. Worryingly, high-profile data breaches had been experienced by 61% of firms, compared to 36% and 38% of French and German respondents respectively.

Margaret Tofalides, head and partner of UK & EU data and cyber security practice, Clyde and Co LLP, said:

“The data breach landscape is going to change a great deal, and very quickly over the next year. I’d expect to see notification as a mandatory requirement for everyone by 2016, so cyber-security, data compliance and breach readiness will have to become absolutely routine business practice. Right now, there is still a lot to learn.”

Part of being prepared to act in the event of a breach is having suitable personnel in place. It is more important than ever for firms to open up cyber security jobs to trained professionals in order to implement some damage control, or ideally prevent the breach in the first place.