London UK: A survey of 200 UK organisations, conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Tenable Network Security has found that one in ten organisations do not think that cyber security is a priority for them, with a further 61% confirming it is not seen as a top three priority. Against this confidence, Tenable’s ‘The State of Cybersecurity 2015’ study discovered that 72% of the organisations spoken with had suffered some form of cyber attack in the last twelve months, with 31% confirming data was compromised. Hardly surprising then that just a third of respondents (35%) believe they could defend themselves against a cyber security threat. A defeated 25% threw their hands in the air admitting they didn’t think they had adequate protection to defend themselves.
“It’s becoming ever more difficult to escape reading headlines about breaches or the latest vulnerabilities discovered by researchers. Given this hostile environment, it is unfortunate that many organisations are not prioritising cyber security high enough and recognising that the lack of good security can have a detrimental impact to the business, especially as some of them have suffered breaches. With 31% of the respondents stating they’d lost data due to malicious activity and 72% suffering some form of attack, it’s important that organisations recognise everyone is a target” said Gavin Millard, Technical Director of Tenable Network Security. “Many organisations are now focusing on reducing the risk of data loss and gaining control of the ever increasing attack surface, but from the results we’ve received from the survey, the actions taken are either not enough or focusing on solving the wrong problems ”
If there was one statistic that stands as testament to the comprehension of the threats organisations face it is that, when you look at the industry organisations are from, IT and Technology companies have the least faith in their defences with just 18% believing they could fend off an attack. Given the battering Retail and Financial Services have taken under the assault from criminals, a confident 25% and 38% respectively believed their systems were insurmountable.
Gavin added: “One of the key things that organisations are still failing to grasp is that their networks have changed dramatically in the last few years. Virtualisation, BYOD and cloud have all expanded the modern network, increasing the threat landscape and letting malicious individuals in. The first step in taking back control is realising you have a problem – the study demonstrates that that there is definitely room for improvement in this area.”