Data privacy has been soaring up agenda since Covid

UK universities might have been found wanting when it comes to data security but most British firms have prioritised privacy in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

According to a study by security firm Netwrix, the pandemic appears to have helped engineer a major change in the tech priorities for organisations across the country as they look to respond to the evolving work environment.

Netwrix found that the top three tech priorities for respondents from the UK were network security (73%), data security (71%) and cybersecurity awareness among employees (69%).

UK organisations were found to be more focused on data privacy now than before, with 60% prioritised this option compared to 30% pre-pandemic.

Surprisingly, given the increase in digital needs, the number of UK organisations that consider digital transformation as their top priority plummeted from 57% before the pandemic to 20% now.

The importance of cloud migration was also found to have decreased from 52% before the pandemic to 22% now. Elsewhere, only 40% of the UK respondents plan to focus on automation of IT processes – down from 70% pre-pandemic, and compliance has moved from the middle of the list to the bottom of the top 10, on 18%.

Netwrix vice-president of product management Ilia Sotnikov said: “Increasing cybersecurity awareness is a necessary measure for UK organisations since remote work has required them to address the human factor as one of the major cyber risks to sensitive data.

“Yet, simply educating users is not enough – it is important that organisations have in place tools providing them with visibility into where this data resides and who has access to it. Coupled with more educated users, such an approach is one of the best ways to protect what’s important to enterprises today.”