---
title: Eight in 10 IT Pros Believe Their Organization Is Next to Suffer a Breach
description: A survey of 500 IT professionals by Exonar reveals that 94% of respondents have experienced a data breach at some point in time, while 79% are worried their current employer could be next.
---

[Business Insights Cybersecurity Blog by Bitdefender](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com)

# [Eight in 10 IT Pros Believe Their Organization Is Next to Suffer a Breach](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/eight-in-10-it-pros-organization-next-suffer-breach)

 Written by [Filip Truta](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/author/filip-truta) | Sep 10, 2020

- 94% of IT pros have experienced a data breach at some point in time
- 79% are worried their current employer could be next
- Employee data breaches most commonly occur through external email services such as Gmail and Outlook

New research indicates that IT professionals are overwhelmingly pessimistic about their organization’s resilience facing a cyber threat. Employee data breaches are seen as the biggest risk to the business.

A [survey](https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/09/10/nine-out-of-ten-it-pros-have-experienced-a-data-breach/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HelpNetSecurity+%28Help+Net+Security%29) of 500 IT professionals by Exonar reveals that 94% of respondents have experienced a data breach at some point in time, while 79% are worried their current employer could be next.

Insider threats are regarded as the biggest risk, with 40% of respondents citing employee-caused data breaches as the biggest overall threat to information security in the coming year. 21% named external attacks from cybercriminals as the biggest risk, and 20% cited malware attacks.

Employee data breaches most commonly occur through external email services such as Gmail and Outlook, according to half of those surveyed. 42% also agree that breaches occur through collaboration tools such as Slack and Dropbox as well, and 41% cited messaging services. Just 6% had never knowingly experienced a data breach, according to the research.

The biggest challenge in combating data breaches is gaining visibility across the organization’s data estate, according to 95% of IT pros. Only 39% of organizations are taking active steps to strengthen their cybersecurity stack with the right tools and processes needed to enhance visibility into the threat surface, respondents said.

[**Bitdefender GravityZone Ultra**](https://www.bitdefender.com/business/enterprise-products/ultra-security.html) offers IT reps the means to zero in on misconfigurations, vulnerable applications, user behavior risks, individual devices and users, and close these gaps quickly and efficiently.

[View full post](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/eight-in-10-it-pros-organization-next-suffer-breach)

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