Key among the core elements of best practice for any company is the provision of a robust layer of data protection. Internet-facing security technologies should be as central to the construction of a business as the bricks and mortar that hold the walls of the corporate headquarters together. The reality is, that all too often, this business fundamental is overlooked, or poorly executed at best.

As AVG now looks to execute our programme of US webinars focused on the finance and banking sector, we need to ask how companies in this sector score on their data security health check.

AVG’s own analysis of four separate sectors of the finance and banking sectors identified the following:

• 13% of businesses don’t use anti-virus software
• 21% have experienced a data security breach of some kind
• 43% do not have a clear IT strategy laid down
• 45% have no dedicated IT support function

The sectors studied were denoted as asset management & financial advisory; pure banking services; insurance; and ‘other’ finance.

While legislative considerations governing the finance and banking sector in the US are generally federal, incongruent state-local business policies in individual banks does arguably lead the US finance sector to more disparate and disconnected than in other developed nations. However, this is no excuse for the massive data breaches that have been felt as recently as April 2011 in banks as weighty as Citicorp.

If data is our most valuable asset today, which many analysts and IT industry commentators agree it is – then surely we owe a duty of care to the data that presides over our corporate finances. This is AVG’s message to the industry and it is also core to our own values as a trading commercial entity. Let us help to make it yours.