83 % OF ORGANISATIONS STUDIED HAVE HAD MORE THAN ONE DATA BREACH , AND THAT THE AVERAGE COST OF A BREACH CONTINUES TO RISE EXPONENTIALLY .
INDUSTRY WATCH
83 % OF ORGANISATIONS STUDIED HAVE HAD MORE THAN ONE DATA BREACH , AND THAT THE AVERAGE COST OF A BREACH CONTINUES TO RISE EXPONENTIALLY .
Every business needs to manage , retain , and secure an exponentially growing volume of data . And in an age where the cloud and connected devices allow people to connect with each other and business resources – data , documents , databases , networks , and systems – that they need from anywhere and at any time , cloud services bring significant business value .
The cloud allows businesses to rapidly store , analyse and act on substantial amounts of data and insights – which in turn accelerates innovation , agility , and competitiveness . These benefits are driving the continued growth in the adoption of cloud computing .
Africa ’ s cloud computing and data centre industries are growing : hyperscalers are already operating major data centres on the continent , and a study by Xalam Analytics showed that the colocation market is forecast to grow by a further 25 % by the end of this year . This is backed up by the Cloud in Africa 2023 study by World Wide Worx , which found that 69 % of African enterprises plan to increase investment in cloud and colocation services in 2023 .
However , with great convenience , flexibility , resilience , scalability , continuity , and business efficiency comes other implications , the most pressing of which is information security . While the World Wide Worx research found that over half – 56 % – of IT decision makers cited improved security as the single biggest benefit of making the move to the cloud , the reality remains that the value of the data being generated and stored by organisations makes it a prime target .
Research found that over 50 % of IT decision makers across South Africa , Kenya and Zimbabwe regard data loss , recovery , and lack of security controls as their most significant concerns .
Businesses from across different sectors , including financial services , healthcare and the public sector , all face emerging data risks because of the sensitive and valuable nature of the data they manage , process and store . A recent IBM report , for instance , found that 83 % of organisations studied have had more than one data breach , and that the average cost of a breach continues to rise exponentially , reaching a record high in 2022 . Healthcare is the hardest hit , with the average cost of a breach standing at over $ 10 million per incident .
The biggest threat has also been found to come from within the organisation . Iron Mountain research found that the biggest threat typically comes from within the organisation , from employees who are not malicious but simply looking for easier and more efficient ways to work .
It uncovered that 40 % of people questioned have fallen victim to a scam or phishing , but that 47 % use the same
Takalane Khashane , Managing Director , Iron Mountain South Africa
Michael Brown , VP Analyst at Gartner
Information security is now one of the biggest challenges and key concerns business leaders have .
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