Cybersecurity remains an important facet of any business, but it may be surprising to learn how little it is understood. Based on research from the Ponemon Institute of 577 IT and IT security practitioners in the US, a report released by AttackIQ found 53% admitting they don’t know how effective the tools they’ve deployed are. Despite this uncertainty an average of $18.4 million is spent annually in the field, with 58% of surveyed companies claiming they’ll increase this budget by 14% within the next year.
On average the companies deploy 47 different and distinct cybersecurity technologies and solutions. However, 56% say that data breaches still occur because they lack visibility into their operations of their own security programs. This and several other doubts lead to less than half of the surveyed experts having cybersecurity skills with confidence that a data breach could be stopped with their current staff and technology investments.
A separate study released last year identified concerns by smart cities regarding cybersecurity relating to infrastructure, particularly in the energy sector.
One of the key ways IT experts and their teams find gaps in their cybersecurity is through penetration testing. 57% of the respondents conduct penetration testing, and 65% attest its effectiveness at uncovering security gaps. Yet almost a third lack a schedule for these important tests, and only 13% conduct them daily.
“When processes and solutions like this fail, many companies respond by throwing more money at the problem,” said Ponemon Institute chairman and founder, Larry Ponemon. “Further security spending needs to be put on hold until enterprise IT and security leaders understand why their current investments are not able to detect and block all known adversary techniques, tactics and procedures.”
