New research from Fortinet has revealed cyber security strategies of IT decision makers at 250+ employee organisations across EMEA . 48% claim the best response to increased security breaches is to invest in new cyber security technologies that provide protection across the entire threat lifecycle. The two greatest concerns of IT decision makers were securing the cloud and protecting against vulnerabilities in IT systems.
However, many see increased security breaches as a catalyst for outsourcing cyber security functions to a managed security service provider. In all, the research found that within three-five years, 44% of EMEA organisations could be addressing their cyber security priorities through outsourcing. The forecast for cyber security outsourcing adoption is highest in German and slowest in Spain.
The survey examined the response tactics of those affected by cyber attacks to illustrate how present security infrastructures have struggled to contend with the realities of an increasingly digital world. Of the half of all EMEA IT decision makers in the survey who reported a security breach in the last year, only 16% of them realised this within minutes of the breach occurring.
In some sectors, such as healthcare, it took 50% of respondents days, months or even years to spot breaches. Such a deficiency in rapid, effective threat identification and response is proven to be highly costly to breached organisations as sensitive data is lost, systems are compromised and brand reputation is damaged.
The survey found that, to mitigate these attacks and better protect their organisations, the number one action undertaken by IT decision makers is the use of threat detection technologies, closely followed by cloud based cyber security services. Such capabilities are underpinned by the provision of actionable threat intelligence.
EMEA respondents cited improved prevention of attacks as the greatest value of threat intelligence, followed by improved information security strategy and improved detection of breaches. In terms of how and where new threat intelligence capabilities may be applied, 35% of those asked said they had their own threat research, incident response team monitoring all security activity in place today, though the number is only 26% in Italy compared to 42% in Germany. Meanwhile, 26% of respondents claimed to outsource their cyber threat intelligence to a managed security service provider, of those respondents 22% in Spain and 31% in the UK outsource their threat intelligence.
“Our independent study highlights the urgent need among enterprise scale organisations from all sectors in EMEA to prioritise end to end cyber security protection with actionable, threat intelligence capabilities in the face of new digital business challenges,” said Patrice Perche, Senior Vice President Worldwide Sales and Support, Fortinet. “Enterprises need to respond more rapidly and effectively to security breaches by investing in integrated, adaptive cyber security architectures for the borderless network. Fortinet is uniquely equipped to deliver this security without compromise through a seamless, comprehensive security fabric.”
“IT decision makers understandably want more resources to combat threats from all directions, but the answer does not have to come in the form of spending more or ripping and replacing existing solutions,” said Alain Penel, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Fortinet. “Fortinet’s open, adaptive security fabric shows how enterprises can achieve true end to end protection with security capabilities that share intelligence across the entire attack surface. We are unique in providing the same breadth of capability and performance whether enterprises choose to retain in house control of their own cyber security infrastructure, or use the services of an MSSP partner from our growing global community.”