The inability of businesses to properly store and analyse big data leaves them vulnerable to security breaches.
That is according to research by security provider McAfee, which finds just 35 per cent of organisations can quickly detect data breaches while 58 per cent only store big data for three months before discarding it.
McAfee's ‘Needle in a Datastack' report details how on average it takes organisations 10 hours to identify a data breach, with 22 per cent stating they would need a day to identify such an event. Worryingly, five per cent of businesses polled in McAfee's survey suggest they'd need up to a week to identify a breach.
"If you're in a fight, you need to know that while it's happening, not after the fact," said Mike Fey, executive vice president and worldwide CTO.
"This study has shown what we've long suspected – that far too few organisations have real-time access to the simple question ‘am I being breached?'. Only by knowing this can you stop it from happening."
The study, conducted by research firm Vanson Bourne, interviewed 500 senior IT decision makers across the UK, USA, Australia and Germany in January 2013.
It follows a previous McAfee study, released earlier this month, which suggests the threat of social media-based malware has increased significantly.
