One-quarter of Australia’s two-and-a-half million small and medium businesses (SMBs) would struggle to survive the financial and reputational damage of a privacy breach, according to new research from Zoho.
The research found that, while awareness is growing, too many businesses are unprepared and unequipped to deal with a privacy breach or cyber incident. From a study of 784 Australian SMBs in industries including retail, professional services, technology, education and manufacturing, 24% said they would not survive the financial impact of a privacy breach, while 23.7% said they could not recover from the reputational hit.
Awareness increasing, action not
In the wake of significant privacy breaches to major Australian organisations including Medibank, Optus and Telstra, Australian SMBs say data privacy has become a key priority. Almost half (45.4%) of respondents ranked data privacy as a top business priority, while one in three (30%) ranked it as important. Four in five (79.6%) acknowledged that those breaches have influenced their views on privacy concerns, and of this, 64.8% have taken action to improve their protections.
While understanding and awareness is high, action is not. One-third (35.2%) have become more concerned in the wake of major breaches, but have still not taken action. Fewer than half (44.4%) have a well-defined, documented and applied customer privacy policy. Meanwhile, a further one in five (18.4%) either don’t have a data privacy policy, or do, but have never updated or reviewed it.
“Data privacy is one of the defining issues for the business community today. Unfortunately, while awareness and concern is increasing, action is not,” commented Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer at Zoho.
“According to our research, the majority (59.4%) of small and medium businesses understand that they’re just as susceptible to a breach as bi ..
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