Equinix global survey reveals 79% of decision-makers in Ireland feel that cybersecurity is critical to their organisation’s success

Equinix, Inc, the world’s digital infrastructure company™, has announced new findings from its annual global study, highlighting the prevailing views of IT decision-makers in Ireland around the evolving data privacy, cybersecurity and regulatory environment.

Surveying 2600 IT decision-makers from diverse enterprises across 26 countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions, the study reveals that:

• 79% of decision-makers in Ireland feel that cybersecurity is critical to their organisation’s success
• 37% of respondents in Ireland view data leaks and cyberattacks as a result of more distributed user devices as a top threat – compared to 50% of worldwide respondents
• 38% of respondents in Ireland say they fear the threat of data leaks/cyberattacks as a result of increased cloud adoption – compared to 48% of worldwide respondents

Moreover, with the recent ransomware attack on the HSE shining a light on the risks associated with antiquated digital infrastructure, Equinix’s global survey illustrated that 84% of respondents in Ireland view improving their organisations’ cybersecurity as a top priority, similar to the 81% of respondents worldwide who said the same – a significant increase from the 70% of total respondents who said this in the 2019 version of Equinix’s report.

Findings from the Global Equinix survey also highlight a growing awareness around the importance of regulatory compliance among IT leaders in Ireland. With GDPR now in its 4^th year of implementation and non-compliance fines up 39% between Jan 2020 and Jan 2021, Equinix’s findings give expression to a more regulatory-vigilant approach being adopted. Specifically, GTTS report survey findings found that:

• 40% of respondents in Ireland identified changing regulatory requirements around data privacy as a top threat
• 82% of respondents in Ireland reported that complying with data protection regulation was a leading priority

Maurice Mortell, Managing Director for Ireland, Equinix commented:

“Our survey was conducted just before the HSE and other recent high-profile breaches. It shows that Irish enterprises had already recognised cybersecurity as their top priority. Now that there is national awareness of the havoc that a cyberattack can cause, we are seeing an even more pronounced focus on IT and cloud security by Irish enterprises.

“The evolving workplace is seeing a growing trend towards hosting applications and data in the cloud, so we can expect to see a sharper focus on cloud security. There are significant benefits of hosting data in highly secure cloud environment, but there are also risks.

“Regulatory compliance is making the protection of data assets a core priority for businesses. The mass rush to digital transformation must be managed in a considered way, with a priority placed on copper fastened data security. With that in mind, we have world leading security specialists and partners who can help businesses to identify and mitigate cloud security risks. Everything we do, all services we launch, including the recently introduced Equinix Fabric and Precision Time, all have risk mitigation and data security in-built.”

Michael Montoya, Chief Information Security Officer, Equinix added:

“Findings from our Global Tech Trends Survey demonstrate the significance of cybersecurity among industry leaders. As seen with the recent spate of ransomware attacks, the threat landscape is increasingly becoming more challenging. There is an accelerated need for the industry to collaborate on the latest and most compliant solutions to strengthen the overall state of enterprise security.”

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