Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 45 | Page 23

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TRENDING DARK DATA EXCEEDS 57% IN THE UAE CREATING MAJOR SECURITY BLIND SPOTS A report from Veritas states that just 2% of companies in the UAE have classified all their data in the public cloud and over half of UAE company data remains unclassified, despite a rise in security breaches. B usinesses across the UAE continue to house ‘dark data’ within their organisations, creating a honeypot for cybercriminals, according to research from Veritas Technologies, a worldwide leader in enterprise data protection and software- defined storage. The Value of Data study, conducted by Vanson Bourne for Veritas, surveyed 1,500 IT decision makers and data managers www.intelligentcio.com across 15 countries, including 100 senior professionals from the UAE. It reveals that on average, over half (57%) of all data within organisations remains unclassified or untagged, indicating that businesses have limited or no visibility over vast volumes of potentially business-critical data, creating a ripe target for hackers. Classifying data enables organisations to quickly scan and tag data to ensure that “ A COMPANY’S DARK DATA RESERVOIR MAY BE OUT OF SIGHT AND OUT OF MIND FOR MANY ORGANISATIONS. INTELLIGENTCIO 23