Best practices for public sector: data risk and business resilience

How can public sector organisations protect themselves in the face of growing data risks?

Business resilience has always been high up on the agenda of the public sector. However, the increasing pressure for digital accessibility and cross-departmental connectivity have pushed it higher up on the priority list. Move to remote and hybrid working, increased government cybersecurity risks and tightening data compliance regulations only exposed areas of weaknesses all public sector organisations need to address.

Many may not realise that a significant threat in terms of data security in the public sector comes from within the organisation, from its employees. That data risk is often unintentional, associated with human behaviour, usually driven by seeking improved efficiency and productivity. The recent years and the prompt move to digital, whilst dealing with increased volume of data, have brought out more ‘work-arounds’ across all levels of an organisation, simultaneously putting more pressure on the records and information management teams and information security teams to drive awareness about cyber attacks and data compliance policies.

Did you know?

A recent IBM report revealed that the average cost of a public sector data breach has surged from $1.08 million to $1.93 million (up 79%) over the past year. 1

1 Survey of 11,000 employees in 10 countries, conducted in September 2021 by One Poll.

Explore tips for mitigating data breach risks across hybrid teams

We asked 11,000 employees in 10 countries about risks they are willing to take at home and at work. Inspired by our findings, we have developed a simple and actionable guide for public sector organisations for creating a risk aware culture from the ground-up, which you can download upon filling in the form and start leveraging in your ongoing strategic conversations for building long-term business resilience. Included in the guide are 5 steps to help you identify the right tools to reshape your information management policies, integrate your technology and evolve your processes.

Did you know?

According to our study, almost half (46%) of data managers report experiencing increased data risks as a result of the pandemic. 1

1 Survey of 11,000 employees in 10 countries, conducted in September 2021 by One Poll.

Drive data compliance, wherever your teams are

Having discovered that 25% of respondents of Iron Mountain research have fallen victim of a scam or phishing and only 32% see the value in shredding documents, we have collected some useful tips to help public sector organisations drive data compliance and minimise the data breach risk that comes with more disparate teams and higher use of digital solutions.

Those best practices can also come handy when attempting to integrate your technology, which the public sector has been on-boarding extensively over the past few years. Recent increase in adoption of collaboration platforms has also resulted in an influx in unstructured data creation, such as chats, meeting recordings, shared documents etc. Regardless of the format, this data needs to be managed throughout its lifecycle just like any other record. Centralising your data compliance and policy management can be a good step to manage complex retention periods.