The consequences of data breaches and losses are becoming increasingly severe for companies: last year, they cost an average of $2.61 million, accounted for 26 hours of unplanned downtime, and resulted in the loss of 2.45 TB of data, according to the latest “Global Data Protection Index” report. “Awareness of the need to secure data in companies is growing year by year. While companies know that this data needs to be secured, they very often do it incompetently or insufficiently,” says Przemysław Biel from Synology.
The “Cybersecurity Barometer” prepared by KPMG suggests that in 2023, the percentage of companies in Poland that registered at least one cybersecurity incident increased by 8 percentage points to 66%. Like in 2022, phishing turned out to be the main threat in the context of data theft. Every fifth organization identified this risk as a priority. Last year, the relevance of data theft related to financial security breaches and data leaks caused by theft or loss of storage devices significantly increased.
“Storing data, e.g. photos, is every individual’s responsibility. For companies, this is a significant challenge, as it carries the risk of losing these precious data, and also the possibility of their encryption, as we are now experiencing encryption attacks very often,” Przemysław Biel told Newseria Business portal.
This is particularly important in the context of the rapidly increasing amount of data being processed by companies. According to Synology experts, by 2027 there will be as much as 284 zettabytes. Data leaks, losses, or breaches often happen unintentionally, as a result of an error or oversight by an employee who, for example, clicked on an infected link in his or her email inbox.
“On top of that, companies also face financial and legal risks, as such data can contain the company’s financial data or its trade secrets. The loss of such data can have serious consequences. Currently, we are often dealing with attacks that encrypt data, affecting both companies and individuals,” the Synology expert emphasizes.
According to the latest edition of Dell’s “GDPI Special Edition 2024” survey – conducted among 1,500 decision-makers from the IT and security sectors, representing large organizations from around the world – data protection creates widespread fears and is becoming an increasing problem for companies. In the past year, 97% of them faced at least one data protection threat incident, and 79% are convinced that they will have to deal with similar situations within the next 12 months. Importantly, 75% of them fear that the company’s data protection tools may prove insufficient to cope with malware and ransomware. 65% of experts are unsure if their organization would be able to recover in the event of data loss. The Dell report shows that the financial consequences of data loss incidents are becoming increasingly severe for companies – last year, they cost an average of $2.61 million, accounted for 26 hours of unplanned downtime, and resulted in the loss of 2.45 TB of data.
Furthermore, companies must also contend with difficult-to-estimate reputational losses, and in the EU area – with legal consequences arising from such regulations as GDPR. On the Polish market, the penalty imposed by the UODO on companies that have experienced a data leak as a result of negligence can reach up to 20 million euros or up to 4% of the company’s total annual turnover from the previous year. If the leak relates to non-personal data, such as a company’s know-how, its competitiveness and position in the market are seriously threatened.
“The barrier to investing in data security is often financial. As Synology, we try to prevent this by providing tools accessible to everyone, both in terms of cost and ease of use,” says the sales channel manager for Poland at Synology. “Another aspect is the complication of the entire process because most people believe that data security is a rather complex task that requires in-depth technical knowledge. However, the latest technologies allow us to do this in a way that is both secure and easy to handle, and cost-effective.”
The expert points out that the basic and most popular mechanism for data protection is the backup, or creating a reserve copy. Most companies, like individuals, are aware that it needs to be done regularly, but not always do it correctly and comprehensively.
“At the moment, solutions like NAS or even public cloud have built-in data protection mechanisms, and sometimes even entire policies that a company can implement to secure its data. That’s why this year, during the Synology Experience Day, we’re presenting, among other things, backup appliance solutions designed for this purpose”, explains Przemysław Biel.
Synology Experience Day is a free event aimed at all business customers, Synology partners, and interested individuals who want to expand their knowledge in the field of security and data protection. It also enables networking and contact making in the IT community, the opportunity to exchange ideas and talk to a wide range of experts. During this year’s Synology Experience Day, which took place on October 15th at the Okęcie Airport Hotel in Warsaw, participants were also offered interactive presentations, lectures, and live hardware and software testing.
“The Synology Experience Day was initiated to meet our community, because previously our partners, customers, and consumers didn’t really have the opportunity to come, chat, and test our devices on site,” the Synology expert says. “For us, it’s very important to gather any feedback from our community during the gathering, to share with them what we have best, and to discuss what we plan to introduce in our solutions in the future.”
