Cyber security fears raised over lackadaisical marketing and IT industry
A survey of marketing firms has raised concerns that many are ill-prepared to counter the threat posed by hackers, with just 10% of marketing professionals polled saying that they were concerned about cyber security.
Cyber security fears raised over lackadaisical marketing and IT industry
The care free attitude comes despite the looming implementation of EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) next year, which carries the threat of a ten-fold increase in fines levied against businesses operating in Europe which are found to be flouting data protection laws.
Compiled by security specialists RSA the survey of IT and marketing professionals based in the US found inadequacies in security within the context of marketing’s digital transformation, with only 48% of marketing staff in possession of the correct protocols to handle a security incident while just 47% have a communication plan in place.
These issues were compounded by the finding that 26% of marketing respondents viewed native security as extremely influential when procuring third-party marketing services while 73% of marketing professionals and 78% of IT specialists admitted that workarounds are knowingly employed to skirt IT policies and procedures.
This was despite IT respondents being the most likely to have access to 10,000 customer records or more with marketing viewed as the most likely function to lead to a ‘cyber-incident’.
The growing vulnerability of the modern world to hackers was illustrated yesterday with a demonstration of how Amazon's Echo can be co-opted to become a surveilance microphone.