The FINANCIAL — ARMONK, N.Y.– More than 80 percent of security leaders believe the challenge posed by external threats is on the rise, while 60 percent also agree their organizations are outgunned in the cyber war, according to findings release by IBM. The study additionally reveals that technology is seen as a critical component in addressing these security issues and threats, with big data, cloud and mobile named as the most significant areas of prioritization.
Sophisticated external threats were identified by 40 percent of security leaders as their top challenge with regulations coming in a distant second at just under 15 percent. As enterprise leaders continue to outline business priorities, external threats will require the most organizational effort over the next three to five years – as much as regulations, new technologies, and internal threats combined.
“CISOs are finally getting a seat in the Boardroom,” said Brendan Hannigan, General Manager, IBM Security. “Security leaders must now use this growing influence to deliver better results: prioritizing the protection of critical assets, focusing investments on intelligence and recruiting top industry talent to augment internal efforts.”
The study aimed to uncover and understand how organizations are currently protecting themselves against cyber attacks, finding 70 percent of security leaders believe they have mature, traditional technologies that focus on network intrusion prevention, advanced malware detection and network vulnerability scanning. However, nearly half (50 percent) agree that deploying new security technology is the top focus area for their organization, and they identified data leakage prevention, cloud security and mobile/device security as the top three areas in need of dramatic transformation, according to IBM.
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