Despite a widespread belief that understanding the cyber threat actors who could be targeting their organisation is important, most, 79pc of respondents stated that their organisations make the majority of cyber security decisions without insights into the threat actor that is targeting them. That’s according to a survey for the cyber firm Mandiant, by Vanson Bourne, a market research firm, between August and September 2022. Feedback was obtained from 1,350 IT security decision makers across EMEA, North America and JAPAC.
While the survey found that nearly all (96pc) were satisfied with the quality of threat intelligence they’re using, respondents declared effectively applying that intelligence throughout the security organisation to be one of their greatest challenges (47pc). Almost all (98pc) of those surveyed said they need to be faster at implementing changes to their cyber security strategy based on available threat intelligence.
According to the survey, 67pc of cyber security decision makers believe senior leadership still underestimate the cyber threat posed, while more than two-thirds (68pc) agreed to the need to improve understanding of the threat landscape.
However, security decision makers remain optimistic regarding the effectiveness of their cyber defences. When asked about confidence in whether they’re fully prepared to defend itself against cyber security events, respondents felt most confident in tackling financially motivated threats, such as ransomware (91pc), followed by those conducted by a hacktivist actor (89pc) and nation-state actor (83pc). When asked to rank which countries they would be unable to fully defend against, more than half of respondents (57pc) said Russia, followed by China (53pc), North Korea (52pc) and Iran (44pc).
Just over half of respondents (53pc) felt they could prove to their senior leadership that they have highly effective cyber security.
Other findings:
– Cyber security is only discussed on average once every four or five weeks with various departments, including the board, members of the C-suite and other senior stakeholders. This cadence is even less frequent for groups such as investors, where the average lowers to once every seven weeks.
– 38pc of security teams share threat intelligence with a wider group of employees for risk awareness.
– most (79pc) of respondents relayed that they could focus more time and energy on identifying critical trends.
Sandra Joyce, Vice President, Mandiant Intelligence at Google Cloud says: “A conventional, check-the-box mindset isn’t enough to defend against today’s well-resourced and dynamic adversaries. Security teams are outwardly confident, but often struggle to keep pace with the rapidly changing threat landscape. They crave actionable information that can be applied throughout their organisation.
“As our ‘Global Perspectives on Threat Intelligence’ report demonstrates, security teams are concerned that senior leaders don’t fully grasp the nature of the threat. This means that critical cyber security decisions are being made without insights into the adversary and their tactics.”
Jamie Collier, Mandiant Senior Threat Intelligence Advisor, EMEA, Google Cloud said: “Organisations in the UK remain high value targets for cyber threat actors. With a number of high profile breaches already this year, security professionals are more conscious than ever of the need for better security practices. This research indicates that one of the biggest barriers to building stronger defences is the sheer volume of information: organisations must find better strategies for putting intelligence into action to regain much-needed focus and identify clear priorities. UK organisations need to put themselves on the front foot, and that can only be achieved by knowing your adversaries, implementing changes at speed, and ensuring cyber risks are communicated effectively amongst all stakeholders.”
