For 47% of Respondents, Fear of Losing Data Keeps Them Awake at Night

Carbonite, Inc. announced research that reveals small businesses are struggling to protect their data in the digital age.

The findings suggest a significant disconnect between businesses’ anticipation of data loss versus their readiness to recover from it and identify four critical areas in need of improvement: data protection and recovery, IT security, privacy and compliance.

A survey of more than 250 IT decision makers at businesses
with 250 or fewer employees revealed:

• Data loss is a business’s greatest fear. 47% of respondents said a fear of losing data keeps them awake at night. In the past year, nearly one quarter (22%) of small businesses had data loss, with nearly 50% recovering less than half of their lost data.
• There’s a data recovery disconnect. 88% of small businesses equate a DR plan to a data insurance policy, yet only 36% have a detailed DR plan in place and only 45% have a framework for one.
• Employee errors represent the biggest security threat to the business. 55% of small businesses worry more about employee data threats than threats from outside forces such as hackers. 32% have grappled with an internal IT security incident in the past year.
• Increasingly complex compliance and privacy requirements weigh heavily on small businesses. 63% of small businesses have to meet some level of regulation, often driven by HIPAA (38%) ISO (32%) and PCI (22%). 58% say privacy concerns for people in IT are now worse for those in the medical profession.

“In the wake of security threats, which are increasing in breadth and depth, businesses need to rethink their technology decisions to protect their most valued asset: data,” said Norman Guadagno, chief evangelist, Carbonite. “As businesses shift to the cloud, active oversight of data is critical to ensure security and privacy is maintained. It’s a requirement for survival in the digital age.”

Survey Methodology
The online survey was conducted by Regina Corso Consulting on behalf of Carbonite between November 13 and 23, 2015 among 251 U.S. IT decision makers who are also purchasing decision makers in companies with between 1-250 employees using an email invitation. Figures for size of company were weighted to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in an online survey, no estimate of sampling error can be calculated.