Shocking findings reveal major GDPR ignorance as a colossal 53 percent of business decision-makers globally do not even know the location of their physical data, with the regulation arriving in months.
Perhaps more concerning still is an attitude to attempt to dodge GDPR, rather than focussing on progress towards becoming compliant with the impending regulatory changes.
This is represented by a massive 47 percent of business leaders, who would prefer to risk a crippling GDPR fine than face owning up to a data breach. In addition, 48 percent said they would migrate data in light of the changing regulation.
Combined with this, it has also been found that organisations currently take 11 days on average to report a breach, while GDPR would require a notification to be made within a maximum of 72 hours.
These concerning statistics were formed by security firm, McAfee, by surveying 800 business decision makers globally.
However, McAfee also established that 74 percent of the respondents believe that adding satisfactory, robust data protection laws would constitute gaining new customers.
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Raj Samani, Chief Scientist and Fellow at McAfee, said: “It’s critical that businesses do everything they can to protect one of the world’s most valuable assets: data… The good news is that businesses are finding that stricter data protection regulations benefit both consumers and their bottom line. However, many have short-term barriers to overcome to become compliant, for example, to reduce the time it takes to report a breach.”
Another positive reaction that has been noted in light of the nearing arrival of GDPR is a massive increase in hiring. Recruitment firm, Robert Half, found that 66 percent of UK CIOs had begun hiring additional staff specifically to shore up their data protection stance. This includes both new temporary and full time positions.
