Dark data exceeds 50%, creating major security blind spot for most companies

Over half of company data remains unclassified, despite a rise in security breaches and stringent data protection regulations.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – June 4, 2019 – Global businesses continue to house ‘dark data’ within their organizations, creating a honeypot for cybercriminals, finds research from Veritas Technologies, a worldwide leader in enterprise data protection and software-defined storage.

The Value of Data study, conducted by Vanson Bourne for Veritas, surveyed 1,500 IT decision makers and data managers across 15 countries. It reveals that on average, over half (52 percent) of all data within organizations remains unclassified or untagged, indicating that businesses have limited or no visibility over vast volumes of potentially business-critical data, creating a ripe target for hackers.

Classifying data enables organizations to quickly scan and tag data to ensure that sensitive or risky information is properly managed and protected, regardless of where that data lives. This broad visibility into data helps companies comply with ever-increasing and stringent data protection regulations that require discrete retention policies be implemented and enforced across an organization’s entire data estate.

Public cloud and mobile environments represent the weakest links in data security, with the majority of data across these environments most likely to be left unclassified and potentially unprotected. Just five percent of companies claim to have classified all of their data in the public cloud, while only six percent have classified all of the data that sits on mobile devices. Three in five (61 percent) companies admit they have classified less than half of their public cloud data, while over two-thirds (67 percent) have classified less than half of the data that sits on mobile devices.

Veritas’ previous Truth in Cloud research revealed that an alarming majority (69 percent) of organizations wrongfully believe data protection, data privacy and compliance are the responsibility of their cloud service providers, although cloud provider contracts usually place data management responsibility on businesses.

“As workforces become more mobile and the barriers between work and personal life break down, company data has become dispersed across numerous environments,” said Jyothi Swaroop, vice president, Product & Solutions, Veritas. “When data is fragmented across an organization and has not been properly tagged, it is more likely to go ‘dark’, threatening the company’s reputation and market share if it falls foul of data protection regulations such as GDPR. So it’s vital that organizations take full responsibility for ensuring their data is effectively managed and protected.”

The dark age of data

Organizations consider strengthening data security (64 percent), improving data visibility and control (39 percent) and guaranteeing regulatory compliance (32 percent) among their top key drivers for day-to-day data management. Yet the majority of respondents admit that their organization still needs to make improvements in all of these areas.

“A company’s dark data reservoir may be out of sight and out of mind for many organizations, but it’s an enticing target for cybercriminals and ransomware attacks. The more organizations know about the data they hold, the better they will be at judging its value or risk,” added Swaroop. “But with the average company holding billions of data files, manually classifying and tagging data is beyond human capability. Businesses must implement data management tools with algorithms, machine learning, policies and processes that can help manage, protect and gain valuable insights from their data, regardless of where it sits in their organization.”

Read more about the key findings of this study in a VOX blog here. To learn more about how Veritas can help global organizations protect their data and bottom line, download the full report here. For more information on implementing a centralized data management strategy, visit www.veritas.com.

Methodology
A total of 1,500 IT decision makers and data managers were interviewed in October and November across the US, the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, the UAE, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

About Vanson Bourne
Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Our reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis, is founded upon rigorous research principles and our ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. For more information, visit www.vansonbourne.com.

About Veritas
Veritas Technologies is a global leader in enterprise data management. Over fifty thousand enterprises—including 90% of the Fortune 500—rely on us to abstract IT complexity and simplify data management. Our Enterprise Data Services Platform automates the protection and orchestrates the recovery of data everywhere it lives, ensures 24/7 availability of business critical applications, and provides enterprises with the insights they need to comply with evolving data regulations. With a reputation for reliability at scale and a deployment model to fit any need, Veritas supports more than 500 data sources and over 150 storage targets, including 50 clouds. Learn more at www.veritas.com. Follow us on Twitter at @veritastechllc.

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change at the sole discretion of Veritas. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Veritas, may or may not be implemented, should not be considered firm commitments by Veritas, should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions, and may not be incorporated into any contract.

Veritas, the Veritas Logo and Backup Exec are trademarks or registered trademarks of Veritas Technologies LLC or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

PR Contacts

US Contact
Archetype for Veritas Technologies
Sami Asiri
naveritas@archetype.co

EMEA Contact
Veritas Technologies
Meera Lakhani-Patel
+44 7824 122395
meera.lakhanipatel@veritas.com

APJ Contact
Veritas Technologies
Ban Leng Neo
+65 98295801
BanLeng.neo@veritas.com