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SAN JOSE, Calif. — A new cybersecurity report by Cisco shows the “most impactful measures” cybersecurity teams can take to defend their organizations against threats.
The report by Cisco, “Security Outcomes Study, Volume 2,” is based on a survey of over 5,100 security and privacy professionals across 27 markets, according to the company this month.
Respondents shared their approaches to updating and integrating their cybersecurity architecture, detecting and responding to threats, and staying resilient when disaster strikes.
Last year’s study revealed that five practices had “an outsized influence” on the overall health of an organization’s security program: proactively refreshing outdated technology; well-integrated security technologies; timely incident response; prompt disaster recovery; and investing in accurate threat detection capabilities.
This year’s study analyzed those top five practices more closely to identify success factors.
“With the shift to hybrid work, organizations are grappling with the increased complexity of securing a distributed workforce,” said Shailaja Shankar, SVP and GM of the security business group, Cisco.
“At the same time, they are also dealing with limited staff and budget constraints, so it’s critical for organizations to invest in innovative technologies and security practices.
“By investing in cloud-based, integrated security architectures with high automation, practitioners can respond to threats faster, so they can focus on enabling the business and keeping users safe.”
Key findings of “Security Outcomes Study, Volume 2”
Updating and Integrating Architecture
- On average, 39% of security technologies used by organizations are considered outdated
- Organizations with cloud-based architectures are more than twice as likely to refresh than those with more outdated, on-premises technologies
- Organizations with integrated technologies are seven times more likely to achieve high levels of process automation. Those organizations have 41% stronger threat-detection capabilities.
- Over 75% of security operations programs that do not have strong staffing resources are still able to achieve robust capabilities through high levels of automation
- Automation more than doubles the performance of less experienced staff, supporting organizations through skills and labor shortages.
Detecting and Responding to Threats
- Organizations that claim to have mature implementations of zero trust or secure access service edge (SASE) architectures are 35% more likely to report strong security operations than those with nascent implementations.
- Organizations that leverage threat intelligence move twice as fast to repair damage caused by security threats than organizations that do not use threat intelligence.
Staying Resilient When Disaster Strikes
- Organizations proactive about testing business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities regularly and in multiple ways are 2.5 times more likely to maintain business resiliency.
- Organizations with board-level oversight of business continuity and disaster recovery efforts that have operations residing within cybersecurity teams perform best.
