Nearly four in five organizations are more concerned about compliance than they were five years ago, with the burden falling on the IT department in more than half (57 percent) of businesses, according to a new ‘IT Compliance Survey’ conducted by cybersecurity software provider Hornetsecurity.
Worryingly, 69 percent of respondents said compliance has a ‘moderate’ to ‘extreme’ impact on their IT department’s operations, and one in eight companies said they couldn’t confirm they were compliant with required controls.
The findings of more than 200 respondents, from CIOs to system administrators, revealed that despite this concern, more than a third (37.5 percent) of organizations don’t have a dedicated compliance officer, and one in eight has been penalized for non-compliance with regulations.
Just one-fifth of respondents said they use an automated system for compliance, with nearly 40 percent relying on time-consuming manual processes. Even when using compliance features, like those present in Microsoft 365, there are problems; over half (52 percent) cited ‘Lack of internal knowledge’ and 44 percent said ‘complexity’ causes issues, both of which can jeopardize effective data protection and compliance with laws and regulations.
More than 80 percent of respondents said their organization would gain ‘moderate’ to ‘extreme’ benefits from a new, easier compliance management tool.
Hornetsecurity CEO Daniel Hofmann said, “This new survey should be a wake-up call for businesses. The fact that more than half of companies are hindering the day-to-day work of IT departments through a lack of compliance staff and policies is a huge concern. It confirms our suspicion that there’s a widespread need for easy-to-use, effective compliance management solutions to enable companies to streamline data management and reduce the risk of data loss.”
Unfortunately, the survey findings also revealed that cloud storage was a major issue when it comes to compliance:
- one in three respondents said a ‘lack of effective reporting and auditing tools’ is a reason the cloud cannot be used to store data in their organization.
● Two in 10 respondents claimed compliance regulations prevent their organizations from storing data in the cloud. - ‘Lack of trust’ (42.2 percent) and a ‘hard requirement data on-premises’ (37.8 percent) were the most commonly cited reasons for not storing data in the cloud.
To address the challenges faced by IT teams, Hornetsecurity has created a way for any-sized company to alleviate compliance burdens with its next-gen all-in-one email security, backup, compliance and security awareness solution for Microsoft 365, 365 Total Protection.
Additional value is added by coupling this with Hornetsecurity’s 365 Permission Manager, which delivers permissions management, enabling administrators to control Microsoft 365 permissions, enforce compliance policies, and monitor violations in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.
Hofmann said, “Hornetsecurity’s offerings for M365 help to deliver easy-to-use and effective security, backup, compliance and governance solutions for organizations. For example, the ease of file storage and file-sharing in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business can quickly create a compliance headache for administrators. Our solutions assist business leaders to work in line with regulations, and importantly, it frees up time and responsibility for IT teams to focus on their essential tasks.”
Click here to access the full ‘IT Compliance Survey’ report.
For more information, visit www.hornetsecurity.com.
