Neustar’s report highlights that only half of organisations have adequate budget to fully meet current cybersecurity needs

Only half (49 percent) of organisations have sufficient budget to fully meet their current cybersecurity needs, and 11 percent can, at best, protect only their most critical assets, according to a recent survey by the Neustar International Security Council (NISC).

Despite the rapidly changing threat landscape, one-third (35 percent) of information technology and security professionals responding to the survey said their organisation’s cybersecurity budget would remain the same or decrease in 2023, and 44 percent of these individuals believe their business will be more exposed and at risk as a result.

Borderless business operation

When survey participants were asked to identify the most significant current risks to their organisation’s IT security posture, ‘increased sophistication of attacks’ emerged as the top concern (cited by 60 percent of respondents), followed by ‘increased activity of attackers’ (54 percent), ‘budget constraints’ and ‘larger attack surface from an increasingly borderless business operation’ (both 35 percent).

‘Increased sophistication of attacks’ emerged as the top concern (cited by 60 percent of respondents)

While a large majority of respondents agree that C-suite and board-level decision-makers understand the current security threats their business is facing (83 percent), recognise the importance of having a multilayered defence strategy (81 percent), and make protecting the organisation an integral part of business operations (80 percent), a significant share of participants (69 percent) are also concerned that current budget constraints are limiting the use of new strategies, technologies and implementation practices.

Mounting budget pressures

“IT and security teams have faced a lot of pressure in recent years as they’ve been tasked with spearheading major new digital initiatives – often in the face of persistent staffing shortages – while defending a growing attack surface from larger, more sophisticated attacks in an increasingly complex threat landscape,” said Carlos Morales, Senior Vice President of solutions at Neustar Security Services.

“With mounting budget pressures, IT and security teams are once again being asked to do more with less, which will likely accelerate the adoption of service-based offerings that allow enterprises to flexibly scale up resources based on demand. While cost may be the driver, technology leaders must carefully consider what value potential service-based offerings can deliver to ensure maximum impact to the organisation and prioritise partners that can deliver best-of-breed technology, professional expertise and word-class service.”

Greatest perceived threat

With regard to the types of exposure organisations face as a result of increased integration

A sizable majority of survey participants (85 percent) reported that hybrid working has increased their organisation’s reliance on third-party providers for outsourcing staff and resources, and more than three-quarters (78 percent) of these professionals believe this development has left their organisation more exposed.

With regard to the types of exposure organisations face as a result of increased integration with third-party providers, respondents rated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks as the greatest perceived threat (ranked highest by 22 percent), followed by system compromise (20 percent) and ransomware (18 recent). Overall, participants rated ransomware as the top increasing threat vector (75 percent), followed by generalised phishing (74 percent), DDoS attacks (72 percent), and targeted hacking and social engineering via email (both 71 percent).

Previous survey findings

During the two-month survey period, respondents reported focusing most on increasing their ability to respond to DDoS attacks (54 percent), vendor or customer impersonation (54 percent), and targeted hacking (52 percent).

In line with previous survey findings, 87 percent of respondents reported that their organisation has been on the receiving end of a DDoS attack at some point. A majority (57 percent) of enterprises outsource their DDoS mitigation, and most (60 percent) take between 60 seconds and 5 minutes to initiate mitigation. The NISC survey participants were senior information technology and security professionals from across six EMEA and U.S. markets. The survey was conducted in November 2022 and reflects respondents’ activity and concerns during September and October 2022.