Mandiant Inc. has released its “Global Perspectives on Threat Intelligence” report, revealing a fresh perspective on how organisations tackle the ever-increasing, complex cyber threat environment.
The “Global Perspectives on Threat Intelligence” survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne, a global market research firm, between August and September 2022.
This report is built on the basis of a survey of 1,350 decision makers in cybersecurity from 18 diverse sectors in 13 nations. The sectors represented in the study include, but are not limited to finance, healthcare, and government.
Despite recent high-profile cyber-attacks, the report suggests that the most senior Australian leaders and board members still do not place enough emphasis on cyber threats to their organisation and maintain a “it won’t happen to us” mentality
Twenty-two percent of Australian companies cite that they have suffered a severe breach over the past 12 months
The survey conducted on cybersecurity decision-makers reveals that a majority of them, i.e., 67%, believe that the senior leadership teams underestimate the severity of the cyber threats that organisations face.
Additionally, 68% of the surveyed individuals agree that there is a requirement for their organisation to improve its comprehension of the constantly evolving threat landscape.
Sandra Joyce, Vice President, Mandiant Intelligence at Google Cloud said, “A conventional, check-the-box mindset isn’t enough to defend against today’s well-resourced and dynamic adversaries.”
“Security teams are outwardly confident, but often struggle to keep pace with the rapidly changing threat landscape. They crave actionable information that can be applied throughout their organisation,”
“As our ‘Global Perspectives on Threat Intelligence’ report demonstrates, security teams are concerned that senior leaders don’t fully grasp the nature of the threat,”
“This means that critical cyber security decisions are being made without insights into the adversary and their tactics.” said Joyce.
Despite having concerns, decision-makers responsible for security continue to be positive about the efficiency of their cyber defenses.
When asked about their confidence levels regarding their organisation’s ability to defend against various cyber threats, respondents were the most confident when it came to financially motivated threats such as ransomware (91%). This was followed by threats posed by hacktivist actors (89%) and nation-state actors (83%).
Seven percent of Australian organisations are primarily concerned about the growing threatsposed by rogue nation-states.
Compared to threats posed by ‘hacktivists’ and financially motivated attacks, fewer Australian companies feel that they are fully prepared to combat an espionage-style attack by a rogue nation.
