One-third of all businesses rely on outdated technology to combat today's cyber threats

Feb. 13, 2018
New research from Cyber adAPT and Ovum reveals that despite increased spending and frequency of threats, businesses are not fully equipped to face growing threat landscape

 Dallas, Texas -- February 7, 2018 –– A new report just released, commissioned by Cyber adAPT and conducted by Ovum, reveals that nearly a third (31 percent) of security teams depend solely on outdated tools such as basic search and monitoring for their cybersecurity needs.

The report, Business has a crucial need for continuous threat visibility and cyber security management services, collates insight from more than 6,000 senior business respondents, as well as in-depth interviews with CISOs, and demonstrates that cybersecurity spending is increasing at a rate of between 9 percent to 12 percent each year.

Despite the rise in investment, the volume of attacks continues to skyrocket, with data breach incidents increased by 40 percent. The report states that the amount of data lost has grown to unsustainable levels, with 1.9 billion records lost or stolen during the first half of 2017 – more data loss than 2016 as a whole.

This industry is, however, showing positive signals, with over two-thirds (69 percent) of security teams switching to a more evolved, analytical approach to defense. These include advanced security information and event management (SIEM), next-generation artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and network analytics.

Kirsten Bay, President and CEO of Cyber adAPT, comments: “New generation technologies offer an exciting future for the cybersecurity industry. Many CISOs are struggling to persuade their boards to invest in new solutions, having failed to demonstrate the returns delivered by outdated tools – in fact, almost 60 percent of respondents thought they received poor value from their existing investments.”

For organizations not yet utilizing next-generation analytics, over half (57 percent) of teams said they were not ready as the tools would be too difficult to integrate based on the internal skills and resources they draw upon.

Bay continues: “A platform approach, bolstered by AI and machine learning is set to offer real returns for cybersecurity customers. Technology will no longer rely on human input to detect threats and will prioritize alerts to streamline the CISOs workload, reducing the amount of time a threat is active inside a network.”

Half of organizations (50 percent) highlighted false positives as something they could not afford to waste time dealing with. Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) deliver prioritized threat data offering the potential to save time, 80 percent of CISOs stated they were prepared to work with an MSSP, and the report predicts this sector will account for more than 20 percent of total security market share by 2020.

Andrew Kellett, Principal Analyst, Infrastructure Solutions at Ovum, comments: “With an evolving threat landscape, CISOs are battling to equip organizations to improve security and data protection. The lack of available resources within internal teams creates a vulnerability that technology must address. Prioritizing risk must be the focus to ensure effective returns on cybersecurity investment and safeguard network infrastructures.”

A full copy of the report can be downloaded at cyberadapt.com/Ovum

About Cyber adAPT:

Cyber adAPT secures every segment of the digital enterprise, finding more attacks more quickly than alternative approaches. Its patented detection platform, skwiid, monitors network traffic in real-time, detecting threats between mobile devices, IoT connections, cloud services, and the core network. Cyber adAPT has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2017. www.cyberadapt.com

About Ovum:

Ovum is a market-leading data, research and consulting firm focused on helping digital service providers and their technology partners thrive in the connected digital economy. Through its 150 analysts worldwide, it offers expert analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries. Founded in 1985, Ovum has one of the most experienced analyst teams in the industry and is a respected source of guidance for technology business leaders, CIOs, vendors, service providers, and regulators looking for comprehensive, accurate, and insightful market data, research, and consulting. With 23 offices across six continents, Ovum offers a truly global perspective on technology and media markets and provides thousands of clients with insight including workflow tools, forecasts, surveys, market assessments, technology audits, and opinion.


Ovum is part of the Business Intelligence Division of Informa plc, a leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group listed on the London Stock Exchange.