Are budgets increasing along with security awareness?

For Dell's latest data security study, the market research company Penn Schoen Berland surveyed over 1,300 IT and business decision-makers from medium-sized companies in the USA, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region at the end of 2015.

One result: C-level executives - i.e. board members and managing directors - are more interested in data security today than in the past. Nevertheless, they still often do not invest enough energy and resources in the topic.

Almost three quarters stated that data security is a priority for their board members and managing directors, but a quarter believe that these managers are not sufficiently informed about the topic.

Three quarters of the study participants reported that their C-level executives plan to expand current security measures. More than half expect their company to spend more money on data security over the next five years.

When it comes to expanding existing security programs, cost concerns play a major role. 53 percent of respondents cited cost as a reason why they would not introduce additional security features in the future.

Only one in four decision-makers is "very confident" that C-level executives will be able to provide a sufficient budget for data security solutions in the next five years.

Everyone is talking about the fact that mobility is on the rise in companies. The Dell study reveals that the reality is somewhat more complicated. The majority of medium-sized companies (65 percent) are postponing plans to mobilize their employees due to security concerns. 67 percent of them are hesitant to implement a bring-your-own-device program for the same reason.

Data at risk in the public cloud

Almost four out of five respondents have concerns when sensitive data is uploaded to the public cloud. 58% are even more concerned about this today than they were a year ago. 38% of decision-makers have restricted access to the public cloud in their company for security reasons.

"With modern technologies that use intelligent encryption, data can be protected wherever it happens to be.

This can also prevent employees from setting up uncontrollable shadow IT and circumventing their company's security guidelines in order to be more productive"

says Brett Hansen, Executive Director Data Security Solutions at Dell.