GDPR-compliant organisations reaping the benefits, study finds

by Nicholas King on March 5, 2019

Organisations that meet the requirements of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) experience a wide variety of benefits, according to a new Cisco report.

The 2019 Data Privacy Benchmark Study demonstrates that GDPR compliance makes organisations less susceptible to data breaches, as you’d expect, but it also streamlines company processes.

Data breaches

The report found that organisations that met the majority of the GDPR’s requirements were 15% less likely to be breached than organisations that were more than a year away from compliance. When a breach did occur, the damage was much smaller for compliant organisations, with an average of 79,000 affected records compared to 212,000.

The same can be said for average system downtime following a breach – 6.4 weeks vs 9.4 weeks – and the probability of a data breach costing more than $500,000 (about £437,000) – 37% vs 64%.

These results shouldn’t be a surprise, given that one of the GDPR’s main intentions is to improve organisations’ information security posture, but that’s not to say it isn’t noteworthy. Organisations invested a lot of money in GDPR compliance, so it’ll be a relief to know that there is demonstrable proof that it’s working.

The report also provides figures for organisations that estimate to be less than a year from GDPR compliance. The figures sit more or less in the middle of those that are compliant and those that are more than a year from compliance.

This shows that it’s worth meeting any requirements you can as soon as possible, even if you’re not ready to comply fully.

Business benefits

Many respondents to Cisco’s report noted that the GDPR hasn’t only helped them improve data protection. It also:

Enables agility and innovation from having appropriate data controls (42%);
Gives them a competitive advantage (41%);
Helps them achieve operational efficiency from having data organised and catalogued (41%);
Reduces sales delays due to privacy concerns from customers and clients (37%); and
Helps them appeal to investors (36%).

Are you reaping the benefits of GDPR compliance?

Most organisations appreciate there is no room for complacency when it comes to GDPR compliance and being prepared against cyber risk. Cyber criminals are constantly adapting their techniques and approach. To help you keep up, we’ve updated our white paper ‘The cyber compliant journey’, which we hope you find useful.

Download here »

Other white papers you may find helpful include ‘5 critical steps to successful ISO 27001 risk assessments’ and ‘Conducting data flow mapping under GDPR’. These can be downloaded via our resources page, here.

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