It’s always helpful to take a step back and see how your security posture and strategy compare to those of other organizations around the world. MSPs in particular can benefit from seeing how their security victories and challenges stack up against the MSP competition as well as in-house IT departments. The results can prompt you to re-evaluate your approach in areas where you may be lagging behind, or they can underscore the superior protection of your security services (a result well worth sharing with existing and prospective clients!).
That’s why the new 2017 Cyberthreat Defense Report, released by CyberEdge Group, is a must-read for all IT pros. CyberEdge Group developed a 27-question (10- to 15-minute) web-based survey in partnership with its sponsoring vendors. (No vendor names were referenced in the survey.) The survey was promoted to information security professionals across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa in November 2016.
Now in its fourth year, the Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR) offers valuable insight into how security professionals across the globe are handling a variety of cybersecurity threats, challenges and trends. The survey responses are divided into four categories (“Current Security Posture,” “Perceptions and Concerns,” “Current and Future Investments,” and “Practices and Strategies”); in addition, the CDR includes a summary (“The Road Ahead”) of looming security issues.
The section entitled “Current Security Posture” offers MSPs and IT managers a detailed look at how security professionals candidly assess the strengths and weaknesses of their current security capabilities. The survey respondents touched on a wide range of topics, including:
- Rising attacks: Nearly four in five respondents’ organizations were affected by a successful cyberattack in 2016, with a full third being breached six or more times in the span of a year.
- Optimism reigns: More than a third of respondents consider it unlikely their organization will be the victim of a successful cyberattack in 2017.
- Mobile devices weakest tech component: For the fourth consecutive year, mobile devices are perceived as IT security’s weakest link, closely followed by other end-user computing devices.
- Developing secure apps weakest process: Secure application development and testing is the security process organizations struggle with the most, followed by user awareness training.
- Failure to monitor privileged users: Only a third of respondents are confident their organization has made adequate investments to monitor the activities of privileged users.
- Patch management woes: Less than a third of respondents are confident their organization’s patch management program effectively mitigates the risk of exploit-based malware.
- Cyber insurance pulling its weight: Three-quarters of respondents rate their organization’s level of investment in cyber insurance as adequate.
Get Full Cyberthreat Defense Report
As CyberEdge Group puts is, “Another important objective of the CDR is to provide developers of IT security technologies and services with information they can use to better align their solutions with the concerns and requirements of potential customers. The net result should be better market traction and success for solution providers that are paying attention, along with better cyber threat protection technologies for all the intrepid defenders out there.”
Download the 2017 Cyberthreat Defense Report.
Guest blog courtesy of Webroot. Read more Webroot blogs here.
