IBM, McAfee execs admit data management is out of control

Security experts have admitted that many businesses are yet to fully grasp the importance of data security despite stronger regulation and a series of highly publicised breaches.

At Gartner's IT Security Summit in Sydney on Wednesday executives from McAfee and IBM revealed that it is very evident that businesses are oblivious to the whereabouts of their sensitive data.

"There's still not a good understanding of what data customers have and they don't know where all their data is stored," said Pamela Warren, from the Cybercrime and Government/Healthcare Education Initiatives at McAfee. She said, customers don't try to deny the fact that they don't know where their data is and are the first to acknowledge it, but admit it's a challenging task.