A survey conducted by Atomic Research and sponsored by the security and compliance management product firm Tripwire of 102 financial firms and 151 retailers in the UK, all of which process card payments, suggests that recent data breaches have had little impact on security controls. Of those surveyed, a third, 35 percent said it would take as long as two to three days to detect a breach on their systems and 44 percent admitted that their customer data could be better protected.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a security standard that outlines minimum security requirements for those that handle card-holder data. When asked how important PCI compliance is to their overall security, 43 percent of respondents said it was the backbone of their security, and 36 percent said it was half of their security. However, to protect confidential customer data, organizations must also apply other security controls.
Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy for Tripwire, said: “It is shocking to see the high level of confidence exhibited by respondents in the wake of the recent series of high-profile cardholder data breaches. Sixty percent of respondents said they are confident that their security controls are able to prevent the loss of data files, but this confidence flies in the face of recent evidence to the contrary.”
Other findings include:
24 percent of those studied have already suffered a data breach where Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was stolen or accessed by intruders.
36 percent of respondents do not have confidence in their incident response plan.
51 percent of respondents are only somewhat confident that their security controls can detect malicious applications.
40 percent of respondents said they do not believe that recent high profile cardholder breaches have changed the level of attention executives give to security.
“It is great that recent breaches have increased cybersecurity awareness and internal dialogue,” said Dwayne Melancon, chief technology officer for Tripwire. “However, the improved internal communication may be biased by a false sense of security. For example, 95 percent of respondents said they would be able to detect a breach on critical systems within a week. In reality, nearly all of the recent publicly disclosed breaches have gone on for months without detection.”
Melancon added: “Furthermore, only 60 percent of respondents believe their systems have been hardened enough to prevent the kind of data loss similar to that seen in recent high profile breaches. These attitudes seem to indicate a high degree of overconfidence or naiveté among information security practitioners. I believe a number of these organizations may be in for a rude awakening if their systems are targeted by criminals.”
