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Thu, November 4, 2010

The Securosis 2010 Data Security Survey

By Rich

This report contains the results, raw data, and analysis of our 2010 Data Security Survey.

Key findings include:

We received over 1,100 responses with a completion rate of over 70%, representing all major vertical markets and company sizes.
On average, most data security controls are in at least some stage of deployment in 50% of responding organizations. Deployed controls tend to have been in use for 2 years or more.
Most responding organizations still rely heavily on ‘traditional’ security controls such as system hardening, email filtering, access management, and network segregation to protect data.
When deployed, 40-50% of participants rate most data security controls as completely eliminating or significantly reducing security incident occurrence.
The same controls rated slightly lower for reducing incident severity when incidents occur, and still lower for reducing compliance costs.
88% of survey participants must meet at least 1 regulatory or contractual compliance requirement, with many required to comply with multiple regulations.
Despite this, “to improve security” is the most cited primary driver for deploying data security controls, followed by direct compliance requirements and audit deficiencies.
46% of participants reported about the same number of security incidents in the last 12 months compared to the previous 12, with 27% reporting fewer incidents, and only 12% reporting an increase.
Over the next 12 months, organizations are most likely to deploy USB/portable media encryption and device control or Data Loss Prevention.
Email filtering is the single most commonly used control, and the one cited as least effective.
Report: The Securosis 2010 Data Security Survey report (PDF)
Anonymized Survey Data:
- Zipped CSV
- Zipped .xlsx

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