Manchester revealed as data breach hot spot as 66 per cent of businesses admit to losing important data

Ann Sellar, Business Development Manager at Crown Records Management

The extent of data breaches in Manchester has been unravelled by a survey that reveals 66 per cent per cent of businesses have lost important data.

The Crown Records Management/Censuswide Survey of IT decision makers at UK companies with more than 200 employees revealed some shocking results as companies battle to keep information safe.

Only recently Carphone Warehouse made front page headlines after it suffered a cyber attack in which the personal information of up to 2.4m customers was put at risk.
Now businesses in Manchester have admitted they too have suffered breaches.

The Crown Records Management Survey revealed: 

• A worrying 66 per cent of IT decision makers said their company had lost important data. The figure in Glasgow was just 53 per cent and in Plymouth 56 per cent.
• 19 per cent of respondents said their company had suffered a computer hack – in Plymouth it was just 11 per cent and Nottingham 15 per cent.

Ann Sellar, Business Development Manager at Crown Records Management, a global information management expert, said: “These survey results should be a wake-up call for businesses in Manchester because the importance of protecting customer data is higher than ever. Not only because of potential fines for data breaches (which will soon increase when the EU General Data Protection Regulation is ratified) but also because of growing public awareness. 

“It takes on average 20 years to build a reputation but just five minutes to ruin it with a data breach and then up to two years to rebuild it. So businesses need to look at the way they protect their information, understand where the threats are and start putting robust processes in place to protect their customers. If they don’t I can only see the number of data breaches increasing in the next few years.”

The Survey also unveiled the personal problems experienced bv senior IT decision makers in Manchester. The figures revealed: 

• 12.5 per cent of respondents admit they had lost sensitive documents before (Birmingham came out worse with 21 per cent).
• 12.5 per cent admitted leaving sensitive documents somewhere (Norwich ‘topped’ this table with 40 per cent).

Ann Sellar added: “The figures are worrying but not surprising – although hacking is big news we estimate 80 per cent of data breaches come from human error. Businesses need to ensure they are doing everything they can to reduce this risk through staff training, robust procedures and working with approved, specialist suppliers to give them the best chance of protecting their data.”