FireEye, the intelligence-led security company, has released its inaugural FireEye Cyber Trendscape Report.
FireEye surveyed over 800 CISOs and other senior executives across North America, Europe and Asia to uncover attitudes towards some of cybersecurity’s most prevalent topics. Further, this global snapshot offers context that can aid critical planning discussions with key stakeholders.
“Our new FireEye Cyber Trendscape Report highlights the overall beliefs and perceptions of senior leaders regarding top cybersecurity priorities for 2020 and beyond, as well as areas where they differ across the globe,” said Eric Ouellet, Global Security Strategist at FireEye.
“These critical data points will help organisations to bring focus and clarity to their cybersecurity programmes, while helping to expand the dialogue with senior leadership and the board.”
Vast majority of organisations to increase cybersecurity budgets
With the perpetually shifting threat landscape, most of the organisations surveyed (over 90%) believe that the cyberthreat landscape will stay the same or worsen in 2020.
Further, the majority (51%) of organisations do not believe they are ready for or would respond well to a cyberattack or breach event. Moreover, 29% of organisations with cyberattack and breach response plans in place have not tested or updated them in the last 12 or more months.
To address concerns regarding the potential loss of sensitive data, customer impact and business operation disruptions, the vast majority (76%) of organisations plan to increase their cybersecurity budget in 2020:
- Organisations most commonly expressed plans to bump cybersecurity spending by 1% to 9% over 2019 allocations
- The greatest number of US participants indicated budgetary increase plans of 10% or more (39%), followed by the UK (30%) and South Korea (22%)
Germany and Japan participants express concerns regarding cloud security
Of the responding participants globally, 45% felt that the cloud was about as secure as on-premise and a further 33% believed that the cloud was more secure. However, in both Germany and Japan, 24% of responding organisations perceived the cloud as being less secure – highlighting a disparity from the global average (18%).
France participants believe employee training to be a top protection measure
Globally, participants consistently identified the same solutions as having the most positive impact on their organisation’s ability to prevent a cyberattack. Vulnerability management and security software took the lead (slightly above 16%). Employee training was the third (14%) followed by response plans and security hardware (both slightly above 12%).
When it came to cybersecurity investment areas with the greatest potential positive impact to an organisation’s ability to prevent a cyberattack or breach, France participants were the only ones to identify employee training as their top priority, if they did not have constraints.
Further, research revealed that 1% of organisations surveyed in France do not have an employee cybersecurity training programme in place, compared to the global average of slightly above 11%.
In contrast, 25% of organisations in Germany and 23% in Canada report not having employee cybersecurity training in place. These numbers are especially concerning considering that a cyberattack can often result from just one employee clicking on a single hyperlink.
For more FireEye Cyber Trendscape Report insights, visit fireeye.com/offers/rpt-cyber-trendscape.html
