back to article Biz overlords need to give a stuff about what they're told by IT crowd

Companies that suffer a data breach can expect to see their share price fall by five per cent and watch two to three per cent of customers take their business elsewhere. Researchers at Ponemon looked at the share prices of 113 companies that had lost customer data, tracking their value from 30 days before their respective …

  1. John G Imrie

    An even more paranoid 63 per cent of IT staff said a breach could result in them losing their jobs, versus just five per cent of CMOs.

    I think this says more about the difficulty of firing a Suit over a Tecky.

  2. alain williams Silver badge

    responsibility to control access to data

    only 46 per cent of CMOs and 44 per cent of IT staff thought that they had a responsibility to control access to personal data.

    Maybe these people should look at the 7th Data protection principle:

    Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

    It would be interesting to see how many organisation break the 8th principle by exporting data to the USA - which does not have adequate protection in law of personal data.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gotta survey them all!

    If I were Ponémon, I would make sure and talk to more than just their subset of industry wonks. They also need to get survey data from Bulbasaur, Chikorita, Treecko, Turtwig, Victini, Chespin, Rowlet, Ivysaur, Bayleef, Grovyle, Grotle, Snivy, Quilladin, Dartrix, Venusaur, Meganium, Sceptile, Torterra, Servine, Chesnaught, Decidueye, Charmander, Cyndaquil, Torchic, Chimchar, Serperior, Fennekin, Litten, Charmeleon, Quilava, Combusken, Monferno, Tepig, Braixen, Torracat, and Charizard.

    I'm particularly interested in the findings regarding Cyndaquil, the night time, cough, and cold remedy, with fire Ponémon.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gotta survey them all!

      Aren't those all arthritis drugs?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gotta survey them all!

        Aren't those all arthritis drugs?

        Can't be - I'm only taking a couple of them.

  4. PTW

    Did it actually ask

    "How likely is your credit card company to keep your data safe?" or did it more likely ask "How likely is your credit card data to be leaked?" the answer then "translated" to "people don't trust their credit card company"

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Until that rises to 20-30% etc

    ...Not so sure CEO / Execs will care....

  6. adnim

    Company policy

    Who writes this? And who is bound by it?

    Yes IT techs make mistakes, the environment which they have to control is usually complex. However, IT techs find themselves pissing into the wind when they advise the greedy fsckers that determine policy.

    I got sick of getting wet and although self employment brings in less than I earned in my last position, I make my own rules and I alone enforce them.

  7. js1592

    Ignorance is bliss

    "There were some interesting disparities in the survey results: while 40 per cent of IT staff said their organisation had seen a data breach involving the loss or theft of more than 1,000 customer records or other business information in the last two years, only 23 per cent of comms and marketing staff agreed. This indicated that either sampling was skewed or that IT staff are not always ‘fessing up to marketing when something went wrong."

    Since when are marketing & comms bastions of honesty? Those numbers seem spot on to me. IT is telling the truth and marketing & comms are denying everything they can. If they can't, they'll get legal involved.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    C level staff

    are never going to take these things seriously until they face personal consequences for breaches ... fines, sacking, or even custodial sentences.

  9. Milton

    Why that won't happen

    "Biz overlords need to give a stuff about what they're told by IT crowd"

    To oversimplify, while retaining the essential truth of the situation:

    * The "IT crowd", broadly speaking, have a mathematical, engineering or even scientific way of thinking, reasoning and approaching problems and solutions. They tend to live in an evidence-based, fact-based, logical world. They are, generally, intellectually honest.

    * The "biz overlords", also broadly speaking, tend to be more concerned with style, spin, appearances, sales and marketing, money, quarterly trends and profit, bonuses, cheap, short-term bandaid fixes, money and cost-cutting if it provides any kind of brief gain or relief. Oh, and money. They are, in short, political creatures—therefore, intellectually dishonest.

    We have the entirety of human history to demonstrate that the latter listen to the former only when hearing what they like, using all the intellectual contortions and excuses that a fundamentally greedy, lazy mind can dredge up. Whereas, when presented with evidence , no matter how solid, that disagrees with their preconceptions or motivations, this will be ignored, dismissed, spun, concealed, lied about, suppressed—even unto the sacking the bearers of unwelcome facts if necessary.

    If an organisation like NASA—NASA, without even the greed factor, for Offler's sake!—can not once but twice manufacture catastrophe and needless death because managers, choosing political behaviour, prefer to ignore engineers while tying themselves in knots of sophistry to justify the unjustifiable, what chance that industries motivated primarily by money can avoid it?

    As countless studies have shown—for those who cannot simply observe what happens around them—the kind of people who are greediest for position, power and money are the absolute last ones who should ever be allowed to make important decisions. (The picture-perfect example of such avarice, foolishness, incompetence and dishonesty is the current President of the US, after all.)

    This is the tragedy of human vice and weakness writ large in 100,000 years of death, oppression and exploitation—and writ small yet perfectly preserved still, when you ask "Why don't bosses listen to techies?"

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Why that won't happen

      Not enough upvotes for you!

  10. ecofeco Silver badge

    Hahahahahahah! Ego maniac stuffed shirt tossers listen to the hired help?

    Can I move to that world?

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

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