A whopping 99 percent of companies said theyare seriously working on compliance withthe European Union law, which goes into effectMay 25. (Image: Shutterstock)

With 30 days to go, nearly half of companies in a recentsurvey reported they have completed more than 75percent of the work to become compliant with the looming General Data Protection Regulation.

And a whopping 99 percent said they are seriously working on compliance withthe EuropeanUnion law, which goes into effect May 25 for anyonedoing business in the EU or with an EU resident.

Netsparker, a London-based company specializing in webapplication security, commissioned the survey of 302 CEOs and otherC-suite executives at U.S. companies. Netsparker CEO FerruhMavituna was not available for comment.

Related: The cost of complying with Europe's new datalaw

The report, released earlier this month, said the health careand finance industries showed the “most resistance” to GDPR withthe lowest levels of compliance work completed. Some 7 percent ofhealth care companies said they are unlikely to be fully compliantby the deadline, while 3 percent of financial services companiesreported they haven't even begun the process yet.

Still, the report's numbers show an increased awareness of thenew law from a month ago, when an EY survey found that nearly two-thirds of 745 globalexecutives were either studying GDPR while taking no action yet, orhadn't even heard of it.

Likewise, an FTI Consulting Inc. survey of 30 in-house counsel at Fortune 1000 corporationsfound some respondents were “revving up to meetthe changed standards as soon as possible, whileothers are waiting to see how the rules will be enforced beforemaking any major, costly overhauls in data storage.”

The Netsparker survey found that over half the respondents wererecruiting new team members to specifically handle GDPR compliance,and just under half were re-engineering existing internal securityteams in an effort to save on costs.

Some 63 percent of the respondents said they have a data privacyofficer, a new post required at most companies under the new law,while 28 percent said they were planning to hire one.

Compliance comes at a cost. About two-thirds of the respondentssaid they will spend between $50,000 and $100,000 to meet GDPRrequirements. Another quarter of them said they'll dish out between$100,000 and $1 million. And 10 percent of respondents saidcompliance with GDPR will cost them over $1 million.

Most respondents (53 percent) said they expect the technologyindustry to be most affected by GDPR, followed by online retailersat 45 percent, software companies at 44 percent, and financialservices at 37 percent.