More than 60% of US small and medium businesses that store credit card and banking information in cloud storage admit they do not follow industry regulations, according to a survey by B2B research firm Clutch.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requires businesses to store banking details securely and the failure to do so can result in a large fine. Despite this confession, 90% of small business felt they were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ confident in their cloud storage’s security.
However, it appeared only just over half of respondents had some measure in place against cyber attacks. Of the 300 IT decision-makers surveyed in the US, 60% stated they used encryption while others utilised employee training (58%) and two-factor authentication (53%) to protect their cloud storage.
Ghazanfar Ghori, CTO at app developer 10Pearls, told the survey: “People will write [the new password] down on a sticky note instead and stick it on their locker. You can yell and tell and try to enforce a policy but at the end of the day, people will find a way around it. Creating better user experiences for employees will actually lead to better adoption of security policies.”
Cyber security has been a hot topic among small and medium businesses, with companies such as BT and Symantec targeting SMEs with new security protection software.