In Proofpoint’s 2024 Voice of the CISO report, the cybersecurity firm discovered that CISOs are coping with people-centric threats greater than ever. Plus, cybersecurity budgets typically don’t change, and AI will help and damage CISOs’ efforts.
Relating to the particular risk dangers, 41% of the CISOs principally worry ransomware assaults, adopted by malware (38%), e-mail fraud (36%), cloud account compromise (34%), insider risk (30%) and distributed denial of service (30%) assaults.
For this report, the analysis agency Censuswide surveyed 1,600 CISOs from organizations of 1,000 workers or extra throughout totally different industries in 16 international locations.
CISOs’ foremost people-centric safety issues
In line with the survey, extra CISOs than ever consider human error is the most important vulnerability for his or her organizations; 74% of the CISOs really feel this fashion, up from 60% in 2023.
As well as, 80% of CISOs see human danger as a key cybersecurity concern over the following two years, up from 63% in 2023. That is the place AI comes into play, as 87% of CISOs need to deploy AI-powered applied sciences to struggle human vulnerability and block human-centric cyber threats.
Regarding threats additionally embrace malicious insiders (36%) and compromised insiders (33%).
DOWNLOAD: Safety Consciousness and Coaching Coverage from TechRepublic Premium
Knowledge loss occasions and risk mitigation
Negligent or careless workers are seen as the most important trigger of information loss occasions for CISOs (42%) over exterior assaults (40%). In line with the Proofpoint report, 73% of CISOs added their knowledge loss occasions had been attributable to workers leaving their group.
The implications of those knowledge loss occasions are principally monetary loss (43%), post-attack restoration prices (41%) and lack of vital knowledge (40%).
SEE: CISOs in Australia Urged to Take a Nearer Have a look at Knowledge Breach Dangers
To struggle the information loss drawback, many CISOs educate their workers about pc safety finest practices (53%), use cloud safety options (52%), deploy knowledge loss prevention know-how (51%), endpoint safety (49%), e-mail safety (48%) or isolation know-how (42%).
This adoption of DLP has surged from 35% to 51% in a yr, with the outcome being 81% of CISOs believing their knowledge is nicely protected.
An growing variety of cybersecurity threats
Proofpoint acknowledged the assault floor of organizations has by no means been bigger for varied causes, together with hybrid work has turn out to be a normal, whereas reliance on cloud know-how has grown. Additionally, workers have turn out to be more and more cellular, typically taking knowledge with them when altering jobs.
Seventy p.c of CISOs really feel their group will most likely face a cloth cyberattack over the following 12 months, with 31% considering it is vitally possible. The CISOs from the U.S., Canada and South Korea are essentially the most involved about experiencing such an assault.
Synthetic intelligence helps CISOs but additionally cybercriminals
As famous earlier, most CISOs surveyed need to deploy AI-powered applied sciences to assist them shield their group, even when they’re nonetheless at an early stage. Proofpoint wrote, “Even in these early phases, we are able to already join the dots between exterior threats, delicate content material and anomalous behaviors or exercise. That’s one thing that has not been attainable on the similar pace and scale with human moderation or conventional evaluation.”
SEE: Google Cloud’s Nick Godfrey Talks Safety, Finances and AI for CISOs
But AI additionally advantages cybercriminals, rendering their assaults simpler to scale, and strategies that had been solely deployed by nation-state risk actors or well-funded cybercriminal teams are actually accessible for lower-skilled attackers. Greater than half of the CISOs (54%) assume AI poses some type of safety danger to their group.
Strain about cybersecurity budgets
The financial system has had an impression on organizations, in accordance with 59% of the surveyed CISOs. Plus, CISOs are pressured to do extra or not less than the identical for much less, with safety budgets remaining flat at finest. Forty-eight p.c of the CISOs have been requested to chop workers, delay backfills or scale back spending.
CISOs’ high precedence in accordance with their funds is now bettering info safety and enabling better enterprise innovation (58%) barely forward of bettering worker cybersecurity consciousness (54%).
CISOs’ issues embrace burnout and insurance coverage
Along with the budget-related stress, 66% of CISOs really feel expectations on them are unrealistic. This quantity is constantly growing (61% for 2023), as in addition they really feel their issues are unanswered. This all ends in low job satisfaction, with 53% of the CISOs experiencing or witnessing burnout prior to now yr.
Sixty-six p.c of CISOs are additionally involved with private, monetary and authorized legal responsibility of their function, fearing a scarcity of safety of their job. And, 72% of CISOs wouldn’t be part of a company that may not supply them administrators and officers insurance coverage or related safety within the occasion of a profitable cyberattack.
A shiny spot: CISOs’ relationships with board members
Eighty-four p.c of CISOs reported they’ve eye-to-eye contacts with their board members, whereas solely 51% reported such contact in 2022 and 62% in 2023. These contacts have led to a better understanding from the board members.
Disclosure: I work for Pattern Micro, however the views expressed on this article are mine.
