Less Than Half of Organizations are Preparing for GDPR Despite Awareness

PRESS RELEASE

Redwood Shores, Calif. – April 27, 2017 – Imperva, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMPV), committed to protecting business-critical data and applications in the cloud and on-premises, today announced the results of a survey on the current state of company preparedness for the  European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The survey of 170 security professionals was taken at RSA 2017, the world’s largest security conference.

GDPR protects the privacy of European citizens and applies to all businesses that hold and process personal data collected in the European Union, regardless of their industry or location. It becomes effective on May 25, 2018. Organizations are focusing on GDPR compliance because fines for certain violations may be up to the greater of €20 million or four percent of total worldwide annual turnover. Companies with significant revenue could face billions of dollars in fines.

According to the survey, 51 percent of respondents said GDPR would impact their companies, nearly a third of the respondents didn’t see the GDPR regulations impacting them, while 11 percent were unsure if GDPR would impact their companies and 5 percent were not familiar with GDPR.

The survey also showed an overall lack of urgency among the IT professionals surveyed with 43 percent of respondents indicating that they are evaluating or implementing change in preparation for GDPR, 29 percent indicating that they were not preparing, and another 28 percent signifying that they were unaware of specific preparations.

“U.S. companies should be evaluating the impact GDPR will have on their data practices, given the major fines for non-compliance,” said Terry Ray, chief product strategist at Imperva.

“Companies need to begin the GDPR legwork now by documenting how personal data is collected and processed in their organizations. From what we’ve seen in working with our clients on GDPR readiness, the projects are complex and involve multiple teams, technologies and systems.”

In asking survey respondents about who is driving GDPR compliance in their organization, 49 percent of survey respondents cited their organization’s legal department, while 8 percent said the IT department is managing the process.

Imperva provides data discovery and classification tools, user access controls, data masking, data breach detection, data transfer controls and other data compliance solutions that can assist organizations in their GDPR compliance efforts. To learn how Imperva helps organizations prepare for GDPR, visit http://bit.ly/2ouojYO.

Survey Methodology
Conducted Feb. 13-17, at RSA Conference 2017, the trade show with the largest concentration of security professionals, the in-person survey is based on responses from 170 attendees including IT professionals, managers and executives from the U.S. (77 percent), EMEA (13 percent) and other regions (11 percent). To view the full survey results, visit bit.ly/2p5kYkS.

About Imperva

Imperva^® (NASDAQ: IMPV) is a leading provider of cyber security solutions that protect business-critical data and applications. The company’s SecureSphere, CounterBreach, Incapsula and Camouflage product lines enable organizations to discover assets and risks, protect information wherever it lives – in the cloud and on-premises – and comply with regulations. The Imperva Defense Center, a research team comprised of some of the world’s leading experts in data and application security, continually enhances Imperva products with up-to-the-minute threat intelligence, and publishes reports that provide insight and guidance on the latest threats and how to mitigate them. Imperva is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. Learn more: www.imperva.com, our blog, on Twitter.