[THE INVESTOR] Fewer than half of Korean companies have dedicated funds to data protection in 2017, a government report showed on Jan. 8.

According to the report by the Ministry of Science and ICT, only 48.1 percent of 9,000 local companies assessed showed interest in monitoring and protecting corporate data.

Only 2.2 percent of companies earmarked more than 5 percent of their IT-related budget to information protection, the report added.

The ministry noted that a recent spate of data breaches and security threats are a reminder of the need to deal with shortcomings in this area.

“The government announced a policy last year to deal with repeated ransomware attacks and other kinds of hacking attempts,” said Song Jung-soo, a ministry official, noting the importance of companies‘ participation.

The percentage of companies using data protection products came to 94.9 percent and data protection services to 45.8 percent last year, the report showed.

However, only 15.2 percent of companies set up a strategy related to personal data protection last year, the report showed.

By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)