Senior executives at most US organizations believe the cybersecurity of their firms is above board, according to a new survey of 500 senior IT executives. The survey included responses from interviews conducted with executives across multiple sectors in the US and 10 other countries.
Results of the survey conducted by FICO revealed that 68% of US firms said they are better prepared for data breaches than their competitors, reflecting an 8% increase since last year. Canadians were more likely to rate their firm a top performer for cybersecurity among the executives interviewed from the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Finland, Norway, Sweden and South Africa.
Within the US, the most confident sectors were power and industry providers, with 86% rating their firms above average or top performers. Respondents from the the financial services sector were the least confident, with only 60% rating their firms as either above average or in the range of top performers. Telecommunications providers fell between those two industries, with 72% of respondents ranking their firm as having above-average cyber-readiness, yet only 44% of telecommunications providers believe their firm’s cybersecurity position will improve in a year’s time.
“Firms have a lot to lose when it comes to their privacy and security risk and must have an accurate picture of how protected they really are,” said Doug Clare, vice president for cybersecurity solutions at FICO. “These figures point to the fact that many firms don’t know how they compare against their competitors, which could lead to an under-investment in cybersecurity protection.”
Maxine Holt, research director at Ovum, which FICO commissioned to conduct the survey, said, “IT leaders have greater funding than ever to protect organizations from the continuously evolving threat landscape and meet complex compliance demands.”
“These same IT leaders are undoubtedly keen to believe that the money being spent provides their organization with a better security posture than any other – but the rapid pace of investment, often in point solutions, rarely takes an organization-wide view of security.”