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 usually don’t change, and AI can assist and harm CISOs’ efforts.
Concerning the precise menace dangers, 41% of the CISOs largely concern ransomware assaults, adopted by malware (38%), e mail fraud (36%), cloud account compromise (34%), insider menace (30%) and distributed denial of service (30%) assaults.
For this report, the analysis agency Censuswide surveyed 1,600 CISOs from organizations of 1,000 staff or extra throughout totally different industries in 16 nations.
CISOs’ major people-centric safety issues
In accordance 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 manner, 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 want to deploy AI-powered applied sciences to battle human vulnerability and block human-centric cyber threats.
Regarding threats additionally embody malicious insiders (36%) and compromised insiders (33%).
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Information loss occasions and menace mitigation
Negligent or careless staff are seen as the most important trigger of knowledge loss occasions for CISOs (42%) over exterior assaults (40%). In accordance with the Proofpoint report, 73% of CISOs added their knowledge loss occasions had been brought on by staff leaving their group.
The results of those knowledge loss occasions are largely monetary loss (43%), post-attack restoration prices (41%) and lack of crucial knowledge (40%).
SEE: CISOs in Australia Urged to Take a Nearer Take a look at Information Breach Dangers
To battle the info loss drawback, many CISOs educate their staff about laptop 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 end result being 81% of CISOs believing their knowledge is properly protected.
An growing variety of cybersecurity threats
Proofpoint said the assault floor of organizations has by no means been bigger for varied causes, together with hybrid work has grow to be a typical, whereas reliance on cloud know-how has grown. Additionally, staff have grow to be more and more cell, usually taking knowledge with them when altering jobs.
Seventy p.c of CISOs really feel their group will in all probability face a cloth cyberattack over the following 12 months, with 31% pondering it is rather 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 want 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 stages, we can already connect the dots between external threats, sensitive content and anomalous behaviors or activity. That’s something that has not been possible at the same speed and scale with human moderation or traditional analysis.”
SEE: Google Cloud’s Nick Godfrey Talks Safety, Price range 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 menace actors or well-funded cybercriminal teams at the moment are 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 economic system has had an impression on organizations, in response to 59% of the surveyed CISOs. Plus, CISOs are pressured to do extra or a minimum of 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 response to their funds is now enhancing data safety and enabling higher enterprise innovation (58%) barely forward of enhancing worker cybersecurity consciousness (54%).
CISOs’ considerations embody 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 considerations are unanswered. This all ends in low job satisfaction, with 53% of the CISOs experiencing or witnessing burnout previously 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 a 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 brilliant 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 higher understanding from the board members.
Disclosure: I work for Development Micro, however the views expressed on this article are mine.