European companies are concerned about the future: four in five are more concerned about compliance than they were five years ago.
In more than half of the cases (57%), the burden lies on the shoulders of the IT department. This was the result of the new IT compliance survey that Hornetsecurity published at Infosecurity Europe 2023, which is currently taking place in London.
Necessary controls not possible
Of particular concern is that 69% of respondents said adhering to compliance policies had a "moderate" to "extreme" impact on their IT department's operations. But that's not all: every eighth company (13%) admitted that they were unable to comply with the prescribed controls. Just as many have even been punished for this. Despite the widespread concerns, the survey of 200 IT managers shows that more than a third (37,5%) of the companies do not have a dedicated compliance officer.
Likewise, automated compliance systems are far from standard. Only every fifth company (21,6%) already works with such a system - 40% of IT departments are even still dependent on time-consuming manual processes. But even the use of compliance functions, for example via Microsoft 365, causes problems for many. A lack of knowledge (52%) and complexity (44%) are the biggest obstacles. This puts both effective data protection and compliance with laws and regulations at serious risk. For this reason, the overwhelming majority (80%) believe their organization would benefit from a new and simpler compliance management tool.
This new survey should be a wake-up call for businesses. The fact that more than half of IT departments are constrained in their day-to-day work by a lack of compliance staff and adequate solutions is of great concern. As we previously suspected, there is a significant need for easy-to-use, effective compliance management solutions that enable organizations to meet their obligations faster. This reduces the risk of data being lost or falling into the wrong hands.
problems with the cloud
The survey also revealed that cloud storage is a major compliance issue: lack of trust (42,2%) and strict requirements for data to be stored locally (37,8%) are the most common reasons against backing up data of the cloud, followed by a lack of effective reporting and control tools (33,3%) and the company's own compliance regulations (21,6%).
In order to support IT teams in mastering the ever-increasing compliance challenges, Hornetsecurity has developed the complete solution 365 Total Protection. With this all-in-one solution for email security, backup, compliance and security awareness for Microsoft 365, companies of all sizes can take the burden of strict compliance regulations off their IT teams. Additional added value is created in combination with the newly developed 365 Permission Manager. It supports effortless management of access permissions and allows CISOs and administrators to continuously control these permissions, set compliance policies for sharing permissions, and identify and correct policy violations in SharePoint or OneDrive.
Hornetsecurity's solutions for M365 are easy to use and help organizations address security, backup, compliance and governance requirements. For example, easy file storage and sharing in SharePoint and OneDrive can quickly become a compliance issue for CISOs and administrators. Our solutions help business leaders operate in compliance. More importantly, they free IT teams of time and responsibility so they can focus on their core business.
More at Hornetsecurity.com
About Hornetsecurity Hornetsecurity is the leading German cloud security provider for e-mail in Europe and protects the IT infrastructure, digital communication and data of companies and organizations of all sizes. The security specialist from Hanover provides its services via 10 redundantly secured data centers around the world. The product portfolio includes all important areas of e-mail security, from spam and virus filters to legally compliant archiving and encryption, to defense against CEO fraud and ransomware. Hornetsecurity has around 200 employees at 12 locations around the world and operates with its international dealer network in more than 30 countries.