Cyberattacks no longer target only large enterprises.
Cybercrime is now one of the greatest business risks facing Swiss organisations. While many SMEs still believe they are unlikely to become targets, the Cyber Study 2024 reveals a very different reality.
Over the past three years, around 24,000 Swiss SMEs have fallen victim to a serious cyberattack. Behind this figure are organisations of all sizes operating across a wide range of industries. Even more concerning, 73% of affected organisations suffered significant financial losses.
Many organisations underestimate their own cyber risk.
Although cyberattacks regularly make the headlines, the study found that more than half of Swiss SMEs still consider the risk of a serious cyberattack to be low. At the same time, almost 40% of organisations have no incident response plan in place should a security breach occur.
Underestimating these risks can have serious consequences. Cyberattacks often result in:
- Business disruption
- Data loss
- Data breaches
- Reputational damage
- High recovery costs
Unstructured data is a frequently overlooked security risk.
A significant proportion of business-critical information is now stored within unstructured data across file servers, SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Exchange, NAS systems, and cloud storage platforms.
In many cases, it is unclear:
- where sensitive information is stored
- which data is no longer required
- who has access to business-critical documents
- or which personal data is being stored.
This lack of visibility makes it more difficult to comply with regulatory requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), while increasing the risk of successful cyberattacks.
Visibility Is the First Step to Stronger Cybersecurity
Before organisations can protect their data effectively, they must first understand what information they actually hold.
A modern data governance solution enables organisations to:
- Complete visibility into unstructured data
- Identification of sensitive information
- Analysis of permissions and access rights
- Identification of outdated and redundant data
- Support for compliance requirements
- Reduced attack surface through data clean-up
This enables organisations to identify risks much earlier and reduce them through targeted action.
How the DataGovernance Suite Helps
The DataGovernance Suite analyses file servers, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Exchange, and other data sources to provide complete visibility into unstructured data.
Organisations gain answers to key questions, including:
- Where is sensitive information stored?
- Who has access to it?
- Which data is business-critical?
- Which data can be deleted or archived?
- Where do security or compliance risks exist?
This creates the foundation for a sustainable cybersecurity strategy while reducing the effort required for audits, compliance, and data management.
Conclusion
Cyberattacks are now an unavoidable reality for organisations. Organisations that understand their data, classify it, and monitor it continuously can significantly reduce cyber risk while building a strong foundation for compliance, information security, and effective data governance.
The DataGovernance Suite helps organisations prevent these critical incidents before they occur. Contact our experts or book a personalised demo to see how greater visibility into your unstructured data can strengthen cybersecurity, reduce risk, and simplify compliance.