Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

White Papers

Only 1% of PH orgs have mature level of readiness – Cisco

78% of companies still feel moderately to very confident in their ability to defend against a cyberattack with their current infrastructure – this disparity between confidence and readiness suggests that companies may have misplaced confidence in their ability to navigate the threat landscape and may not be properly assessing the true scale of the challenges they face.

Photo by John Karlo Mendoza from Unsplash.com

Only one percent of organizations in the Philippines have the ‘Mature’ level of readiness needed to be resilient against modern cybersecurity risks, according to Cisco’s 2024 Cybersecurity Readiness Index.  

The 2024 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index was developed in an era defined by hyperconnectivity and a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Companies today continue to be targeted with a variety of techniques that range from phishing and ransomware to supply chain and social engineering attacks. And while they are building defenses against these attacks, they still struggle to defend against them, slowed down by their own overly complex security postures that are dominated by multiple point solutions.

These challenges are compounded in today’s distributed working environments where data can be spread across limitless services, devices, applications, and users. However, 78% of companies still feel moderately to very confident in their ability to defend against a cyberattack with their current infrastructure – this disparity between confidence and readiness suggests that companies may have misplaced confidence in their ability to navigate the threat landscape and may not be properly assessing the true scale of the challenges they face.

2024 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index: Underprepared and Overconfident Companies Tackle an Evolving Threat Landscape

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The Index assesses the readiness of companies on five key pillars: Identity Intelligence, Network Resilience, Machine Trustworthiness, Cloud Reinforcement, and AI Fortification, which are comprised of 31 corresponding solutions and capabilities. It is based on a double-blind survey of more than 8,000 private sector security and business leaders across 30 global markets conducted by an independent third party. The respondents were asked to indicate which of these solutions and capabilities they had deployed and the stage of deployment. Companies were then classified into four stages of increasing readiness: Beginner, Formative, Progressive and Mature.

“We cannot underestimate the threat posed by our own overconfidence,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “Today’s organizations need to prioritize investments in integrated platforms and lean into AI in order to operate at machine scale and finally tip the scales in the favor of defenders.”

Findings

Overall, the study found that only one percent of companies in the Philippines are ready to tackle today’s threats, with 64% organizations falling into the Beginner or Formative stages of readiness. Globally, 3% of companies are at a Mature stage. Further:

  • Future Cyber Incidents Expected: 67% of respondents said they expect a cybersecurity incident to disrupt their business in the next 12 to 24 months. The cost of being unprepared can be substantial, as 59% of respondents said they experienced a cybersecurity incident in the last 12 months, and 36% of those affected said it cost them at least US$300,000.
  • Point Solution Overload: The traditional approach of adopting multiple cybersecurity point solutions has not delivered effective results, as 76% of respondents admitted that having multiple point solutions slowed down their team’s ability to detect, respond and recover from incidents. This raises significant concerns as 66% of organizations said they have deployed ten or more point solutions in their security stacks, while 24% said they have 30 or more.​
  • Unsecure and Unmanaged Devices Add Complexity: 85% of companies said their employees access company platforms from unmanaged devices​, and 38% of those spend one-fifth (20%) of their time logged onto company networks from unmanaged devices. ​Additionally, 34% reported that their employees hop between at least six networks over a week.
  • The Cyber Talent Gap Persists: Progress is being further hampered by critical talent shortages, with 91% of companies highlighting it as an issue. In fact, 36% of companies said they had more than ten roles related to cybersecurity unfilled in their organization at the time of the survey.
  • Future Cyber Investments Ramping Up: Companies are aware of the challenge and are ramping up their defenses with over half (68%) planning to significantly upgrade their IT infrastructure in the next 12 to 24 months. This is a marked increase from half (54%) who planned to do so last year. Most prominently, organizations plan to upgrade existing solutions (70%), deploy new solutions (51%), and invest in AI-driven technologies (39%). Further, almost all (99%) companies surveyed expect to increase their cybersecurity budget in the next 12 months, and 92% respondents say their budgets will increase by 10% or more.

To overcome the challenges of today’s threat landscape, companies must accelerate meaningful investments in security, including adoption of innovative security measures and a security platform approach, strengthen their network resilience, establish meaningful use of generative AI, and ramp up recruitment to bridge the cybersecurity skills gap.

“The threat landscape today is more complicated than ever and organizations globally including those in the Philippines continue to lag in their cyber resilience. Companies need to adopt a platform approach that will provide a simple, secure, single pane of glass view into their entire architecture to strengthen their security posture and best take advantage of the opportunities that come with emerging technologies,” said Zaza Soriano-Nicart, Managing Director, Cisco Philippines.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The report, 2024 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index , is available here.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Like Us On Facebook

You May Also Like

ELECTRONICS

Philips EasyKey partnered with Megaworld and equipped their world-class properties with only the best-in-class smart locks we have on offer, the Philips EasyKey 9300.

HEADLINES

The PLDT wireless unit is also calling on customers to report these messages to Smart’s HULISCAM portal for further action.

HEADLINES

Here are some tips from Sophos for staying secure online during the cybersecurity awareness month.

HEADLINES

While only 21% of hackers believed that AI technologies enhance the value of hacking in 2023, 71% reported it to have value in 2024....

HEADLINES

Kaspersky has enhanced its Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS), a native XDR Platform for industrial enterprises, and streamlined Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Industrial...

HEADLINES

Smart has received reports about unscrupulous individuals pretending to be company executives or representatives of organizations asking for donations for made-up or nonexistent relief...

HEADLINES

Located in the Kaspersky office, the new facility will provide the company’s stakeholders with services ranging from an overview of Kaspersky’s practices, to a...

HEADLINES

Smart and Maya emphasize that they never send SMS with links requesting login credentials, personal information, or account verification. If you receive such a...

Advertisement