Most of the UK public say they trust that government would handle data security issues well, as CESG releases guidance on data protection for the public sector.
The survey, published by cybersecurity firm Centrify at the Infosec conference in London, asked 800 people to rank which of seven sectors would best handle security breaches.
It found that 28% of people in the UK said they thought government and local government would handle it best.
This was second only to banks, which 41% thought would handle issues the best.
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Government and local government was ranked second by 29% of respondents, and third by 17% of respondents.
Some 24% of respondents ranked banks second in the list of the seven sectors, and 14% ranked them third.
Medical and healthcare companies were the next most trusted group, with 14% ranking them first, 22% ranking them second and 32% ranking them third of the seven groups.
Retail businesses, membership organisations like gyms or dating sites, travel sites and restaurants and bars commanded less faith, with none of these four groups being ranked first by more than 6% of respondents.
Meanwhile, the information security arm of GCHQ, CESG, has published guidance for public sector organisations on how to protect personal data stores.
The guide, which was published in beta in November 2015 for consultation, offers 15 good practice measures for basic security assessment of personal data stores.
Each of the 15 examples sets out an ideal scenario and offers a traffic-light system to test how closely you measure up to that scenario.
They include measures that demonstrate how well an organisation understands what data is held and what needs protecting, who has access to that data and how well the system is designed to protect against data loss or theft.
CESG adds that the measures will only be meaningful if they are applied to a service or system as it currently exists. As such it says that an audit of the data held by the organisation is carried out before measurement takes place.
Image credit: Flickr – elhombredenegro
