The survey findings paint a sobering picture of web form vulnerability in modern enterprises. Despite 64 % of organisations rating their security maturity as advanced or leading, an overwhelming 88 % experienced at least one web form security incident in the past two years, with 44 % suffering confirmed data breaches through form submissions.

“ The findings are clear. Stop using legacy web forms. Start using secure data forms,” said Tim Freestone, CMO at Kiteworks.“ This research reveals a fundamental truth that security leaders have suspected but couldn’ t quantify. Traditional web forms have become the weakest link in enterprise data protection. Organisations collect their most sensitive information through forms – financial records, health data, authentication credentials, government IDs – yet most form solutions were built for convenience, not security. The industry needs to evolve from treating forms as simple data entry tools to recognising them as critical infrastructure requiring military-grade protection, complete data sovereignty and continuous compliance validation.”

Attack landscape reveals persistent threats

The report documents widespread and sophisticated attacks targeting web forms across all industries:

• Sixty-one percent faced bot and automated attacks flooding forms with malicious traffic

• Forty-seven percent experienced SQL injection attacks despite widespread adoption of parameterised queries

• Thirty-nine percent encountered crosssite scripting( XSS) vulnerabilities

• Twenty-eight percent suffered session hijacking incidents

• Twenty-one percent experienced manin-the-middle attacks

These attacks persist despite high adoption of traditional security controls. The data suggests that controls exist at the platform level but fail to achieve consistent coverage across legacy, embedded and department-owned forms.

Data sovereignty emerges as non-negotiable requirement

The survey’ s most striking finding: 85 % of organisations rate data sovereignty as critical or very important, with 61 % stating it is strictly required for compliance. Sovereignty requirements remain consistently high across industries – government( 94 %), financial services( 93 %), healthcare( 83 %) and technology( 86 %).

“ The sovereignty findings fundamentally change the conversation around form security,” said Patrick Spencer, SVP of Americas Marketing and Industry Research at Kiteworks.“ Organisations cannot simply opt out of sovereign control – they must demonstrate that citizen and customer data remains within approved jurisdictions. Traditional form solutions cannot deliver these capabilities because they were never architected with multiregion isolation or government-cloud deployment in mind. The market is dividing between vendors who can prove data residency and those who cannot.”

Regulatory complexity drives market segmentation

Organisations operate under multiple overlapping frameworks: 92 % face GDPR requirements, 58 % must satisfy PCI DSS, 41 % operate under HIPAA( 97 % in healthcare) and 75 % of government respondents require FedRAMP authorisation. This regulatory convergence creates distinct market segments with sharply different security needs.

The high-security segment – government and financial services – demands FedRAMP authorisation, FIPS 140-3 validated cryptography and strict data residency controls. Government agencies require that 75 % of data remains within national borders, effectively excluding vendors without government-grade certifications. x

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