Of the 170 corporate counsel included in the Kroll Ontrack 2016 Corporate Risk Survey, 76 per cent said they believed they had effective safeguards in place to protect their organisation’s intellectual property. But not all of them should be so confident – the survey also found that 59 per cent of organisations included in the survey had insufficient or inadequate data breach or incident response (IR) programs. Fewer than half reported that their company’s IR plan is regularly updated or tested, while 20 per cent of respondents said that they never discuss data security issues with their organisation’s head of technology.
Top priority
While GCs may not have a firm handle on how well their data is being protected, most appear to recognize the importance of keeping data safe. Data security, cybersecurity and privacy were listed as the number one most pressing legal issue currently facing their organization. Further, only 7 per cent of respondents said that their company was decreasing its spend on data privacy measures, while 46 per cent were perceived an increase and 47 per cent believed spending levels were staying relatively flat.
Maximising investment
However, companies need to go further than merely throwing money at the problem, warns Kroll Ontrack director of consulting Tom Barce. The philosophy that investment in security is a costly and cumbersome necessity without a direct correlation to growth or profit needs to be challenged, he said to Inside Counsel. ‘This is a failed philosophy because every three to five years [companies] aim to replace technology because ‘it’s not working’,’ he said. ‘Instead, implementing processes, such as table-top exercises or staged hacks, to prove out technology solutions and associated procedures need to be leveraged to maximise the investment in technology,’ he added.
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