Eighth Annual Data Breach Preparedness Study

The Eighth Annual Study: Is Your Company Ready for a Big Data Breach? sponsored by Experian® Data Breach Resolution and conducted by Ponemon Institute focuses on the state of data breach preparedness and the importance of addressing security risks created by a remote workforce. In this year’s study, we surveyed 544 professionals in the United States and 445 in EMEA[1]. A comparison of the US and EMEA findings are presented in this report. All respondents work in IT and IT security, compliance and privacy, and are involved in data breach response plans in their organizations.

In the context of this research, we define a data breach as the loss or theft of information assets, including intellectual property such as trade secrets, contact lists, business plans and source code. Data breaches happen for various reasons including human errors and system glitches. They also happen as a result of malicious attacks, hactivism or criminal attacks that seek to obtain valuable data, disrupt business operation or tarnish reputation.

^{[1] Countries included in the EMEA cluster: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Benelux, Nordics, UAE and Saudi Arabia}