Forty per cent of public-sector bodies 'have suffered data breach', lack of skills blamed
Iron Mountain report suggests cost-cutting and lack of security skills to blame
Forty per cent of IT leaders in the public sector have admitted that their department has suffered a data breach because management is struggling to deal with the pace of change as more and more services shift towards digital.
That's according to research released in a new report, The Public Sector - managing information through the challenge of change, published by security firm Iron Mountain.
Examples of data breaches in the public sector include Cornwall Council sending information about salaries and redundancies to the wrong staff, and a worker at Wolverhampton Council sending out a report that contained sensitive information that should have been removed.
The report suggests the cost-cutting drive towards digital has played a role in data breaches occurring, as employees aren't equipped with the digital security skills required to ensure data is kept safe.
Research saw Iron Mountain question senior executives responsible for managing public-sector information and implementing the government's digital transformation strategy and found that almost three-quarters - 72 per cent - believe their approach to information management is fit-for-purpose.
More worryingly, however, 61 per cent admit their organisation has lost or misplaced important documents and 40 per cent say they have suffered a data breach.
"The UK's public sector is going through a period of transformational change. Almost everyone we surveyed said that cost cutting had resulted in the loss of valuable skills in records and information management," said Phil Greenwood, commercial director at Iron Mountain.
"For the public sector to further its success in bringing services online, freeing up its estate and reducing cost, the transformation must be met with improvements in how records and information are managed," he continued, before - perhaps unsurprisingly - suggesting public-sector bodies need to improve information management.
"With four in five public-sector bodies identifying an opportunity to make additional cost savings by optimising their records and information management, this looks like an area that deserves consideration and review," Greenwood said.
"It is important that the individuals, teams and departments responsible for the government's vast estate of information have the support they need to proceed into a digital future with confidence," he concluded.
But even if an organisation believes they have the best security in the world, a company is almost certainly going to suffer from a data security breach because basic human errors still represent the weakest link in the enterprise, Dan Lamorena, senior director in the HP enterprise security group recently told Computing.