Cyber-security awareness low among UK local government employees

According to a survey commissioned by Sophos, 41% of respondents thought their current IT security practices would offer suitable protection against the growing threat of cybercrime. The research shows that over the past 12 months, 90% of local government and police organisations have been affected by budget cuts, which have prompted a 67% cut in jobs and a 63% cut in overall front line services.

When it came to IT, 62% of respondents said they are planning to make savings by increasing or implementing shared services to split the costs with other neighboring organisations. However, only 30% said their organisations are exploring the consolidation of existing IT services to make savings, and only 9% are looking at consolidating their IT security services.

Asked about the biggest drivers for change from an IT security point of view, 59% of respondents said the demand for more remote and mobile working practices, while 46% cited increased awareness of data security thanks to high-profile security breaches and coming new European Union data protection legislation.

When asked what their main concerns were from an IT security point of view, 47% said that issues around data loss were at the top of the agenda, followed by remote access (31%) and targeted attacks (25%).

However, despite the move towards more remote and mobile working policies, public sector organisations remain sceptical about turning to flexible cloud storage systems, with only 16% using these tools. Only 11% of respondents were concerned about the security implications of shadow IT and only 18% were concerned about bring your own device (BYOD).