IBM: CISO's outgunned in the cybercrime coral
IBM's third annual Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) study of 138 security executives found that 60% said their organizations are outgunned in the cyber war and that sophisticated external threats were identified by 40% of security leaders as their top challenge with regulations coming in a distant second at just under 15%.
IBM said that as enterprise leaders continue to outline business priorities, external threats will require the most organizational effort over the next three to five years as much as regulations, new technologies, and internal threats combined.
IBM went on to say that security leaders need to use their influence to manage a broader array of external threats and higher expectations across the business.
"A more extensive scope of what requires protection (e.g., cloud, mobile, etc.) and new security technologies also contributed to this trend toward increased complexity. CISOs are no longer stewards of security technology but rather decision makers who must always take business operations into account. Security leaders are obtaining more clout and wielding it to contribute to companies' broader goals while managing risk at every step along the way," IBM stated.
Some other interesting facts from the IBM CISO study: