The State Of Privacy & Data Security Compliance

By Sophos Inc.

We are pleased to present The State of Privacy and Data Security Compliance study conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Sophos. The purpose of the study is to determine if various international, federal and state data security laws improve an organization's security posture. What is the value of compliance and does it correlate with the value of the compliance effort?

With the plethora of new privacy and data security regulations, we believe it is time to ask whether regulations help or hinder an organization's ability not only to protect sensitive and confidential information assets, but to be competitive in the global marketplace. Further, how difficult is it to be in compliance, who is the typical person or functional leader accountable for compliance? What is the value to the organization? Finally, what differences (if any) exist in security practices between compliant and non-compliant organizations?

We surveyed 528 IT and security practitioners (referred to as respondents) who are involved in their organization's data security efforts, which can include responsibility for the technologies that support compliance efforts and managing and/or auditing legal and regulatory requirements.