According to a report from Markets and Markets, the cyber security market is estimated to grow to $155.74 billion by 2019 at a CAGR of 10.3 percent from 2014 to 2019. Even with all that growth, a new survey just released by Promisec survey reveals there is still great concern from the majority of VP and C-Level IT leaders regarding the threat landscape in the digital space.
That may be because Promisec found the endpoint security solutions that are in place lacking, with inadequate protection or detection capabilities in today’s security environment. Unlike the days of old, when hackers carried out their activities for sport, today there are many new players who have more nefarious reasons to break into your network. This includes highly knowledgeable and funded criminal organizations, government-sponsored cyber espionage, hacktivists and unidentified actors.
“The security landscape continues to evolve in response to a new breed of more complex and sophisticated threats, where traditional blocking and prevention mechanisms, such as firewall, anti-virus and anti-malware software, are simply no longer enough to keep our networks safe,” said Dan Ross, CEO of Promisec.
The survey was carried out between June 1, 2014, and June 16, 2014, with participation from 150 IT decision makers including senior management, security managers, directors and network and systems engineers.
Endpoints are susceptible, because there are so many possible gateways. And their numbers are increasing. More than three in four, or 76 percent said the number of endpoints is rising, but only 39 percent of the companies have advanced endpoint security protections in place even though 74 percent consider endpoints to be “most vulnerable” to a cyber-attack.
This has created an atmosphere in which an incredible 86 percent, or almost 9 out 10 of VP and C-Level IT leaders having a heightened fear of a breach over the next year.
Some of the other key data points from the survey are:
Close to 70 percent of VP and C-Level IT leaders put endpoints at the top of their most vulnerable list, while 75 percent indicated they have a need for deeper endpoint analytics to assist in threat detection for endpoints.
55 percent are “not confident” the security systems they have in place will protect against all scenarios.
Only 40 percent said that they are ‘modestly’ keeping up with BYOD and mobility trends even though they are responsible for the increase in endpoints.
More than half or 56 percent expressed patching, remediation, and compliance are the biggest challenges relative to endpoint security.
Ross went on to say, “Our survey indicates that companies have begun to embrace endpoint security as a critical part of their total security portfolio, but have yet to adopt a robust endpoint monitoring and remediation infrastructure to address today’s most severe threats.”
Whether it is the increasing number of mobile devices being integrated into organizations, remote access, virtualization or hosted services, there are more endpoints than ever before. If organizations don’t implement the right security parameters with each additional endpoint, eventually it will become a gateway for a security breach.