49% Believe Metrics Don’t Accurately Communicate Risk Efforts to Executives
LONDON, UK: Tripwire, Inc., a leading global provider of risk based security and compliance management solutions has announced the results of the second installment of research on the state of risk-based security management with the Ponemon Institute.
Key findings from the UK survey include:
· 73% of respondents say metrics are “important” or “very important” to a risk-based security program
· 51% don’t believe or are unsure that the security metrics used in their organizations are properly aligned with business objectives
· 49% didn’t believe or were unsure that their organizations’ metrics adequately convey the effectiveness of security risk management efforts to senior executives
When asked, “Why don’t you create metrics that are well understood by senior executives?”
· 53% said the information is too technical to be understood by non-technical management
·42% said pressing issues take precedent
· 43% said they only communicate with executives when there is an actual security incident
· 35% said it takes too much time and resources to prepare and report metrics to senior executives
· 13% said senior executives are not interested in the information
Commenting on these results, Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, said, “Even though most organizations rely on metrics for operational improvement in IT, more than half of IT professionals appear to be concerned about their ability to use metrics to communicate effectively with senior executives about security.”
“These results correlate with the dozens of conversations we have been having with CISO’s across the globe,” said Rekha Shenoy, vice president of marketing and corporate development at Tripwire. “CISO’s talk about the importance of leveraging metrics as a way to influence business leadership and build a risk management practice within their companies. Unfortunately, they struggle with the bigger challenge of producing meaningful metrics while those they use are rarely aligned with business goals.”
The survey covers risk-based security metrics and evaluates the attitudes of 1321 respondents (749 U.S. and 571 U.K.) from IT security, IT operations, IT risk management, business operations, compliance/internal audit and enterprise risk management