Understand What's Next in Cyber Security

Prior to the COVID pandemic, our work environment was already on the shift to a more digital and remote arrangement. With the pandemic accelerating this shift, there has been major increases in the use of cloud technologies exposing organisations to new security vulnerabilities like never before.

Today cybercriminals are constantly evolving to access data being used remotely. These shifts have pushed security teams into overdrive as they deal with on-site challenges and also hybrid off-site issues too.

This blog highlights key findings from Palo Alto Networks, "What’s Next in Cyber: A Global Executive Pulse Check GLOBAL SURVEY.”

The report is an independent survey of 1,300 C-level executives – from around the globe and across industry verticals- to reveal the latest trends and themes in cybersecurity. You can access the report here.

As Data breaches have become the norm where cybercriminals now have access to increased attack surfaces with each new device, user or data being introduced into organisations - breaches are credited to ransomware and business email compromise alongside phishing and software vulnerabilities.

The Survey reveals that in the last 12 months the following was reported:

• 96% of all respondents experienced at least one breach
• 57% experienced three or more breaches
• 33% of CXOs said they experienced an operational disruption as a result of a breach
• 84% of respondents agree (to varying levels) that they have seen more security incidents due to hybrid work

Despite the constant reviews and updates to businesses security frameworks, Palo Alto Networks discovered that 'only 25% of executives believe their organisations’ cybersecurity readiness and resilience is high'.

Cybersecurity staffing shortages was also addressed where 96% of surveyed individuals associated one of their biggest challenges to 'a lack of skilled cyber professionals'.

The below graphic visualises the top three business priorities as well as challenges when it comes to managing an organisations security:

*Sourced from Palo Alto Networks.

The significance of vendors and Tools

According to the survey, '77% of respondents said they are highly likely to reduce the number of security solutions and services they rely on'. This could be because of the use of too many point products and security gaps which arise from increased cyberattacks and complexities surrounding vendor management.

It was discovered that globally, 41% of organisations work with 10 or more cybersecurity vendors.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is defined as a framework where all users must have continuous authentication, authorisation and validation prior to data and application access. The survey has revealed the following top three reasons that support a Zero Trust implementation:

1. Growing supply chain / vendor ecosystem (52%)
2. Sophistication and frequency of attacks (49%)
3. Hybrid workforce (47%)

This survey also states that an estimated 98% of CXOs say 'implementing Zero Trust is challenging'. Below are the top 3 challenges listed in the survey:

1. There is a lack of internal expertise
2. Cyber teams being unable to prioritise and pinpointing where to start
3. There is a lack of qualified vendors that provide a complete and integrated solution

Other standout findings are below:

The 3 top areas of cybersecurity receiving the most funding are:
1. Data Security
2. Cloud Security
3. Internet of Things (IoT) Security

• Nearly 25% of executives surveyed say at least half their cybersecurity budgets are allocated to hybrid workforce security requirements.
• 37% of respondents say lack of executive alignment on prioritising cybersecurity is one of the top three challenges across their organisation.
• 50% of organisations plan to increase investments in software firewalls on both public and private clouds.
• 49% of respondents think that AI has the highest impact on security in the realm of more effective threat detection.
• 39% of global executives think that threat detection, alert triage and incident response can be almost completely automated in the SOC

Click here to download the full survey findings from Palo Alto's 2022 Global What's Next in Cyber survey.

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