Only Half Of Companies Are Confident In Their Cyber-Security

A growing number of IT security professionals are losing faith in their confidence to keep their organisations safe from cyber threats, according to new figures.

Cisco’s latest Annual Security Report found that only 54 percent of organisations worldwide had confidence that their security precautions would be able to stand up to an increasing number of ever-changing threats.

This is despite cybersecurity remaining a central issue for many companies, especially as more and more businesses move online, with 92 percent admitting that regulators and investors will expect companies to manage cybersecurity risk exposure.

Resilient

“Security is resiliency by design, privacy in mind, and trust transparently seen,” said John Stewart, senior VP, chief security and trust officer, Cisco.

“With IoT and digitisation taking hold in every business, technology capability must be built, bought, and operated with each of these elements in mind. We cannot create more technical debt. Instead, we must meet the challenge head on today.”

The report also found that an alarming number of businesses are attempting to defend themselves on aging infrastructure, as between 2014 and 2015, the number of organisations that said their security infrastructure was up-to-date dropped by 10 percent.

The survey also discovered that 92 percent of 115,000 Internet-connected devices are running known vulnerabilities, and that 31 percent of all devices analysed were no longer supported or maintained by the vendor, with eight percent described as “end of life.”

Growing threat

Some of these shortcomings could be put down to the increasing amount of outsourcing concerning a company’s security provisions, as enterprises of all sizes look to deal with a lack of qualified talent by getting in outside help.

Overall, the number of businesses outsourcing their security needs rose to 23 percent in 2015, a significant increase over the 14 percent recorded the previous year.

Even SMBs are getting involved with outsourcing, as they look to find a more cost-effective way of staying safe. However overall, the number of SMBs using online security tools actually fell by more than ten percent, showing that an increasing number of companies are now at risk of being easy pickings for criminals.

“As cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, businesses are realising the ever-growing need to protect their data assets, but are unclear as to how,” said Stephen Love, EMEA security practice lead at Insight.

“It is time to face the inevitable situation; businesses are highly likely to face a data breach in the near future. Every organisation – no matter how large or small – must have a robust security approach to its data management. It is crucial then that businesses assess just what portion of their data is most valuable and needs closer security attention.”

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