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New research from Sophos reveals that half of UK local government organisations don’t know if their current practises would protect against a cyber attack.
The research surveyed 2,728 local government and police workers across a wide range of disciplines and highlighted that over the past 12 months, 90 per cent of local government and police organisations have been affected by budget cuts.
This has prompted job losses (67 per cent) and cuts in overall front line services (63 per cent) in many areas of the organisation.
When it came to IT, 62 per cent said they are planning to make savings by increasing or implementing shared services – splitting the costs with other neighbouring organisations. However, only 30 per cent of those surveyed said their organisations are exploring the consolidation of existing IT services to make savings, and only nine per cent are looking at consolidating their IT security services.
“With cybercrime at an all-time high and public sector budgets reducing year-on-year, it’s more important than ever that organisations maximise the resources available to them,” said James Vyvyan, regional vice president of Sophos UK & Ireland.
“There is a clear trend towards local authorities partnering with neighbouring authorities to increase and implement shared services. This collaborative approach is certainly helpful in the fight against cybercrime. Our research indicates that local authorities and police may also be missing the opportunity to consolidate their IT and security technologies, which can deliver further savings, helping to protect jobs and frontline services.”
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