Company data are valuable after all, firms realise

ABOUT HALF OF Britain's organisations have changed the ways they (mis)manage their mountains of electronic data, according to data recovery outfit Kroll Ontrack.

Kroll has released a survey just in time for Infosecurity Europe this week, claiming companies have finally realised private electronic data have value, after several very public government data loss snafus over the last year.

Apparently, 27 per cent of those polled said negative media coverage of clumsy data loss cases forced them to take another look at how their firm's security procedures measured up. Sixty per cent of respondents reckoned they had only just become aware that electronic information was actually valuable, as opposed to something you take down to the pub on a USB stick and leave in the car park.

Forty per cent of those surveyed were so well versed in marketing speak, they admitted their shift in attitude towards electronic data came as a result of realising the, "heightened importance of data availability and business continuity". Sixty-six per cent felt a key priority this year was to beef up their firm's backup and archiving processes, whilst paradoxically also wanting to have easier access to data.

Kroll's business development manager, Alastair Molyneux, was delighted at the tiny baby steps firms were taking towards basic protection of sensitive information, gushing: "More organisations are now aware of the value of data and the need to manage it correctly".

Better late than never. µ