Significant corporate cyber weakness exposed

Businesses are vulnerable to security breaches owing to their inability to properly analyse or store big data.

That is the key finding of a study from McAfee which reveals how organisations around the world are unable to harness the power of big data for security purposes.

The ability to detect data breaches within minutes is critical in preventing data loss yet, according to McAfee, only 35% of firms stated that they have the ability to do this.

In fact, more than a fifth (22%) said they would need a day to identify a breach, and 5% said this process would take up to a week. On average, organisations reported that it takes 10 hours for a security breach to be recognised.

“If you’re in a fight, you need to know that while it’s happening, not after the fact,” said executive vice-president and worldwide chief technology officer Mike Fey.

“This study has shown what we’ve long suspected - that far too few organisations have real-time access to the simple question ‘am I being breached?’ Only by knowing this, can you stop it from happening.”