One-third of the organisations said that even if they detected a major incident, they would be unable to contain it within an hour, according to an annual benchmark survey released by LogRhythm, a leading security intelligence company.

The new research study, Cybersecurity: Perceptions & Practices, also found that less than half of all organizations were able to detect a major cybersecurity incident within one hour.

The study, conducted by Widmeyer, which surveyed 751 IT decision makers from the US, UK and Asia-Pacific, also revealed that a majority of organizations are only moderately confident in their ability to protect their companies against hackers.

“Cyber threats continue to grow in volume and intensity. Seemingly every month, another massive security breach dominates the headlines,” said Matt Winter, VP of Marketing and Business Development at LogRhythm.

“To combat these threats, organizations need to carefully plan their budgets and strategies, while developing effective programs that tackle specific threats and keep them one step ahead of cyberattackers.”

The current state of security maturity

Many companies are focused on growing their security maturity, and team size is an important indicator. The survey revealed that, on average, companies employ 12 cybersecurity professionals in their organization. However, more than half of the respondents said that they employ 10 or fewer professionals on their teams.

Special threat detection programs are another indicator of security maturity. This study found that most decision makers—more than 70 per cent of respondents—have programs in place to detect specific threats, such as ransomware, insider or employee threats, and denial of service attacks. The vast majority of IT decision makers—95 per cent—also use security software to prevent and react to threats. And more than a quarter deploy at least 10 security software solutions to manage security threats.

Level of security confidence

When it comes to confidence levels, about half of security decision makers believe that a determined hacker can still breach their organization. In fact, over one-third reported that their company has experienced a breach in the past year—ranging from 29 per cent in the United States to 39 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ability to respond to cyberthreats

There are many factors that enable a security team to quickly detect and respond to an incident, including technology, process, programs, and people. When it comes to technology, a strong majority (nearly 80 per cent) of IT executives said that a platform for security management, analysis, and response is beneficial—though only about a third rate such a platform as very beneficial. This response may reinforce the notion that true security confidence cannot be created with technology alone. – TradeArabia News Service