Lieberman Software Survey Reveals Many Organizations Fail to Take Proactive Approach to Cyber Defense
A new survey from Lieberman Software Corporation revealed that 92 percent of IT security professionals believe that cyber security drills are a good way to prepare for cyber attacks. However, 63 percent of those surveyed admitted that their organizations never run such drills, or only do so annually.
The study was carried out at Black Hat Conference 2015, and looked at the attitudes of nearly 150 IT security professionals. It also revealed that only 11 percent of organizations carry out cyber security drills quarterly, while 26 percent conduct them every six months.
“What concerns me most about this survey is that the majority of IT security professionals fully understand the benefits of running cyber security drills, but only a small percentage actually put these drills into practice,” said Philip Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software. “In today’s threat landscape, organizations are attacked continuously. With this in mind, you would think companies would be doing everything they can to limit the damage of potential cyber attacks. However, our study reveals this clearly isn’t the case. And IT teams are fully aware of the consequences.”
Executive Management Does Not Heed IT Security Warnings
The survey also revealed that IT professionals often warn their superiors about pending IT security disasters, but think that executive management fails to take action.
When respondents were asked about the obstacles they face trying to convince management to proactively deal with cyber threats, responses were as follows :
- 11 percent said they couldn’t find a way to give IT a place in the corporate board room
- 10 percent said they couldn’t find budget to rectify the situation
- 12 percent said they couldn’t convince management to understand the severity of cyber threats
- 45 percent said all of the above
“IT security is a companywide issue. Any CEO or corporate board who does not realize this will have a nasty shock when their company is attacked, their share price plummets and they lose customers. Corporate boards should learn about the cyber threats targeting their companies, and should have a good understanding of the company’s IT security posture. Executive management should assume that intruders are already inside their networks. They should ensure that their organizations can contain cyber attacks by securing privileged access, and by removing shared and long-lived credentials that intruders exploit to move around the network. This will mitigate damage and protect the company’s reputation when a cyber attack does occur,” Lieberman continued.[su_box title=”About Lieberman Software” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]
Lieberman Software proactively stops cyber attacks that bypass conventional enterprise defenses and penetrate the network perimeter. The company provides award-winning privilege management and security management products to more than 1,400 customers worldwide, including nearly half of the US Fortune 50. By automatically securing privileged access – both on-premises and in the cloud – Lieberman Software controls access to systems with sensitive data, and defends against malicious insiders, zero day attacks and other advanced cyber threats. Lieberman Software is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, with offices and channel partners located around the world.[/su_box]
The opinions expressed in this post belong to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.