In a poll conducted by 451 Research of IT decisions makers from 400 large organizations, cybersecurity firm eSentire gained insight into the current state of cybersecurity, planned initiatives, challenges faced, and how emerging technologies and digital transformation efforts are having an effect on security.
The results, outlined in a report titled ‘Cybersecurity is improving, but is it enough?’ painted an interesting picture:
- “97% believe their high-value, sensitive information is well-protected even though over 56% of respondents indicated their organizations had experienced a significant security incident, cyberattack, or data breach in the past 12 months.”
- “87% of organizations are increasing security budgets by an average of 22 percent for the coming year.”
- “Only 13% of all respondents believe they do not have enough information security personnel on staff to support their organization.”
- “81% of organizations are looking to add specialized security experts to their teams seeking skills and expertise in threat hunting, security operations, cloud security expertise and automation and orchestration.”
- “78% of organizations report they already have a broad implementation of production workloads in the cloud, and 72 percent are storing sensitive or regulated data in the public cloud.”
- “61% of respondents said they are already executing formal digital transformation strategies.”
57% of organizations are moving toward a #hybridIT environment that leverages integrated on-premises systems and cloud/hosted resources. Is your #cybersec enough? Get insights from the just released @451Research report: https://t.co/nBpzYDTfJL pic.twitter.com/12KWrfPC9w
— eSentire (@eSentire) December 4, 2019
“SMEs are reporting higher levels of confidence compared to that of their larger peers that often have more resources, staff, tools and specialized expertise,” explained 451 Research senior analyst Aaron Sherrill, in an article from Help Net Security. “This high level of confidence, or overconfidence, is not backed by risk assessment data and seems to stem from comparison to the organizations’ abilities and cybersecurity posture of the past and not in light of the present or future.”
Continuing, Sherrill says that organizations should keep their attitudes about cybersecurity level-headed.
Image courtesy 451 Research
“Considering the increasing volume and sophistication of malicious attacks, the increase in regulatory requirements, the rapid adoption of new technologies and the ever-increasing complexity of a rapidly expanding hybrid IT ecosystem, organizations should remain skeptical about their cybersecurity posture.”
For many organizations, data security, governance, and privacy are at the top of the cybersecurity management pile, but multi-cloud security and the security of emerging technologies are quickly emerging as pressing challenges.
“Digital transformation and the distribution of the workforce not only scatters resources and assets, but continues to drive a divide between corporate confidence and actual ability to protect their interests in a transformed workplace and economy,” says Mark Sangster, eSentire’s Vice President and Industry Security Strategist.
