Posted by Mumbai: Organisations reported more cyberattacks since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, according to Check Point commissioned-global study of over 600 IT security professionals. Dimensional Research conducted this global study on Check Point’s behalf.
Among those respondents, 58% said their organisations experienced an increase in cyber attacks since the coronavirus pandemic started.
Survey finds securing remote workers is the leading priority and challenge for the next 2 years, as roughly half of the organisations believe security will not return to pre-pandemic norms.
47% of respondents said security for employees working remotely will be the leading challenge going into 2021
61% of respondents said securing remote work was the leading priority for the next 2 years
~ 50% of all respondents believed that their security approach will not return to pre-pandemic norms
95% of respondents said their strategies had changed in the second half of the year, the biggest being enabling remote working at scale, cited by 67%
Key findings from the survey of over 600 IT security professionals globally were:
The biggest security challenges going into 2021:
· 47% of respondents said security for employees working remotely will be the leading challenge
· 42% of respondents said protecting against phishing and social engineering attacks
· 41% of respondents said maintaining secure remote access
· 39% said protecting cloud applications and infrastructure
Top Security priorities for the next 2 years:
· 61% of respondents said securing remote work was the leading priority
· 59% of respondents said endpoint and mobile security
· 52% of respondents said securing public or multiple clouds
· 30% of respondents said IoT security
· 24% of respondents said email security
New normal is here to stay:
· ~ 50% of all respondents believed that their security approach will not return to pre-pandemic norms
· ~ 29% said that they expect a return to pre-Covid operations at some point in the future
· ~ 20% believed their situation has now returned to what it was
Right now, organisations face more attacks since the start of the pandemic:
· 58% of respondents said their organisations have experienced an increase of attacks and threats since the start of the COVOD-19 outbreak
· 39% said that attack volumes have remained the same
· 3% said they have fallen
Clear shift in 2020 security strategies:
· 95% of respondents said their strategies had changed in the second half of the year, the biggest being enabling remote working at scale, cited by 67%
· 39% of respondents said this was followed by security education for employees
· 37% of respondents said improving network security and threat prevention
· 37% of respondents said expanded endpoint and mobile security
· 31% of respondents said rapid adoption of cloud technologies
· 27% of respondents said they accelerated current IT projects during 2020, showing that for the majority, their pandemic response involved an unplanned re-invention of their business model
Check Point’s tips to help organisations evolve their security strategies:
- Prevent in real-time. Protective vaccination is better than treatment, and in cybersecurity, real-time prevention is the key to protecting networks, employees and data against attacks and threats.
- Secure your everything. Every part of your network matters. Organisations must revisit and check the security level and relevance of their network’s infrastructure, devices, processes, compliance of connected mobile and PC devices, IoT and more. The increased use of the cloud demands an increased level of security, especially in technologies that secure workloads, containers, and serverless applications on multi- and hybrid-cloud environments.
- Consolidate and gain visibility. With so many changes made to organisations’ infrastructures, it is essential to ask these key questions: are we getting the security we really need? Are we protecting the right things? Did we miss a blind spot? The highest level of network visibility increases security effectiveness. You need unified management and improved risk visibility to your entire security architecture and this can only be achieved by reducing the number of point product solutions and vendors.
“The survey shows that a majority of organisations do not expect their current security issues and priorities to change much over the next two years. For many, the rapid changes they made to their networks and security infrastructures in response to the pandemic will be permanent,” said Sundar Balasubramanian, MD – India & SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies.
“At the same time, cyberattacks and threats are increasing as hackers try to take advantage of those changes. So organisations need to prioritise closing off any security gaps across their new distributed networks, from employees’ home PCs and employees themselves to the datacentre,” added Balasubramanian.
“Dealing with the impact of the pandemic on business operations, and ensuring they can continue to operate as efficiently and as securely as possible will be the biggest ongoing challenge for most enterprises,” he concluded.