The Unisys Security Index 2013 found three quarters of Australians (74 per cent) are concerned about a data breach by accidental loss, theft or deliberate hacking at financial services firms such as credit card companies and banks – well ahead of telecommunication providers and internet service providers (67 per cent).
Data concerns relating to other industries such as government services such as social welfare, tax office or immigration (59 per cent) and health organisations such as hospitals and doctors (56 per cent) are also elevated but well behind financial services.
Overall concern in Australia regarding security has seen its largest spike since 2008 following security breaches being reported in the news on a regular basis. This has eroded public confidence in the safety of their personal information, according to Unisys.
John Kendall, security program director, Unisys, Asia Pacific, told InvestorDaily part of the reason banks featured so prominently is because people recognise they are a more valuable target for hackers and data theft than other companies due to the amount of financial information they hold.
However, consumers are past the point of accepting that data security is an issue they can’t do anything about. Australians in particular are highly prepared (at 86 per cent, according to a separate suvey 18 months ago) to take their business elsewhere and even go public if they had data concerns with a service provider– for example, if their data was shared without their consent.
Mr Kendall said while there is no 'silver bullet' for dealing with data security risks, there are steps companies can take, including employee education and data encryption.
“One of the chief concerns we have is that lots of organisations are focusing on external threats but the majority of breaches occur internally,” he said. These can be deliberate or accidental, for example, corporate information being stored on flash drives or iPhones, he added.
“Accidental breaches account for significant risk. You need to treat your internal networks as hostile – encrypt data wherever you store it and assume someone will accidentally or intentionally compromise it.”
Mr Kendall said while the highest level of concern is at banking and financial institutions, Australians are also concerned about data breaches across a range of other sectors.
“This sends a message to governments and companies that the public perception of data security has been compromised by high-profile breaches and that organisations must take action to regain public trust,” he said.
“As the Australian government finalises its mandatory data breach notification laws, these results show that the public is very aware of the threat of data breaches and would expect organisations to be accountable.
“The question is how will compliance with these new laws be managed? Unisys recommends that notification be triggered by those data breaches that have the greatest risk of harm and that the laws focus on the potential impact of the data breach on individuals and organisations,” Mr Kendall said.
