Organizations are failing to appreciate the growing challenges of protecting their data and, as a result, are experiencing the economic impact of data loss, according to new findings from the EMC Global Data Protection Index 2016, an independent study by Vanson Bourne.
The study, revealed that, while businesses have been successful in reducing the impact of the four biggest traditional data loss risks, they are unprepared for new, emerging threats, which are taking their toll instead. When compared to the EMC Global Data Protection Index 2014, 13% more businesses worldwide experienced data loss or disruption in the last 12 months, costing them an average of US$914,000.
In Singapore, 33% of businesses have suffered data loss in the last 12 months – a similar result to the 2014 study with 34% of Singapore businesses. The data loss is estimated to have cost Singapore companies some US$1.3 million.
Threats to Protection Data
An overwhelming 62% of businesses surveyed in Singapore have suffered unplanned systems downtime in the past 12 months. More than a quarter (28%) of businesses had experienced data loss or unplanned systems disruption due to an external or internal security breach.
Businesses are increasingly facing threats not just to their primary data, but also to their backup and protection data. Whether combating cyber extortionists demanding cash to unlock data encrypted by ransomware, or other risks posed to backup and protection data, businesses need to find solutions that put their ‘data of last resort’ beyond harm’s reach.
To address this threat, EMC is launching a new Isolated Recovery Solutions line to help organizations “air gap” a protection instance of their data from the networked enterprise. Based on EMC VMAX, EMC Data Domain and EMC Professional Services technologies, EMC’s Isolated Recovery Solutions line is designed to enable businesses to create a virtual panic room for their most valuable data, isolating it from networked systems that could be compromised in a cyber attack. If needed, the isolated instance of protection data can be scanned and restored safely within minutes, offering a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) superior to tape-based backup. Isolated Recovery Solutions offerings based on EMC XtremIO, EMC Unity and EMC Isilon technologies will be available in the near future.
Threats to Data in the Cloud
Top business applications are currently being run in the public cloud with increased number of Singaporean organizations expected to adopt cloud technology for mission critical applications such as websites (38%), productivity (30%) and email (29%) in the next 12 months. Yet less than half said they protect cloud data against corruption and less than half against deletion. 49% of Singapore respondents said they already run their email solution in the public cloud. And, overall, respondents already had, on average 26% of their IT environments based in the public cloud.
Because SaaS application providers often won’t protect against accidental loss or deletion by an employee, EMC believes it is critical for organizations to include cloud applications in their overall data protection strategies.
Evolving Protection Needs
Close to 80 percent of Singapore organizations surveyed are not very confident they could fully recover their systems or data in the event of data loss or unexpected systems downtime. And confidence also suffers when it comes to data center performance, with 85% declaring they are not very confident their solutions will be able to keep pace with the faster performance and new capabilities of flash storage. Businesses in Singapore also showed low confidence with 83% indicating that their current data protection solutions are insufficient to meet all future businesses challenges.