Research of global data breach detection rates in 2012 have revealed that serious breaches are going unnoticed for months and in some cases years.

The research carried out by security firm Trustwave found that six in ten organisations in 2012 took longer than three months to detect a data breach.

Of the data breaches analysed by the company in 2012, the average time for discovery was 210 days, an increase in delay from 175 in 2011. 14 percent of the breaches took over two years to be discovered.

The research suggests that organisations are continuing to employ ineffective security measures that are failing to keep up to date with new threats.