Should social media organizations be subject to strict privacy regulation?

80% of IT security professionals agree that more security and privacy legislation is needed, especially for social media organizations that store personal data. However, nearly the same number of respondents (82%) don’t believe their elected officials understand cyber risks well enough to develop and enact effective security regulation, a Venafi survey reveals.

384 IT security professionals attending Black Hat USA 2019 have been surveyed.

Additional findings from the survey include:

• Ninety-three percent do not trust social media organizations to protect their personally identifiable information.
• Eighty-two percent do not trust the government to protect their personally identifiable information.
• Eighty percent of respondents say government officials do not understand the cyber risks targeting digital infrastructure.

“There’s a global wave of legislators, regulators and law enforcement officials proposing controversial surveillance laws such as government mandated encryption backdoors,” said Kevin Bocek, vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi.

“However, security professionals lack confidence in politicians’ abilities to improve cybersecurity given the unabated flood of government breaches in the U.S. and around the world.

“The results of our survey send a clear message that governments must improve their cybersecurity fluency in order to make a meaningful impact and help our frontline defenders protect the global economy, freedoms and privacy.”