Security Leaders Struggle to Handle COVID-Related Infosec Challenges

A Dark Reading and Omdia survey finds many leaders think their efforts to keep pace with security challenges are lacking.

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

August 20, 2021

1 Min Read
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Many security leaders view their efforts to keep pace with COVID-19-related challenges as insufficient, and express great concern for the increased attack surface at many organizations caused by the shift to a more distributed workplace.

Forty percent of respondents to a survey entitled "2021 Enterprise Cybersecurity in a Post-Pandemic World", conducted by Dark Reading and Omdia, say their efforts to keep up with security challenges caused by the pandemic leave room for improvement. COVID-19-related challenges have accelerated changes to security posture for 39% of respondents.

Most security leaders expect cyberattacks involving ransomware, phishing, malware, and advanced persistent threat actors will increase even as the pandemic itself eventually recedes. Concerns are high over remote access risks, vulnerabilities in newly rearchitected IT systems, and security exposures in cloud environments. Many organizations have changed their security strategies to keep up with the rapid and unprecedented changes caused by the pandemic.

The following are key data points from the survey:

  • 51% of IT security managers expect cyberattacks will increase as the pandemic eases

  • 32% of organizations still struggle to build secure access methods for remote workers and locations, well over a year into the pandemic

  • 66% of respondents identify ransomware as their top security concern, 57% point to phishing, and 52% are most concerned about malware

  • 41% of organizations are migrating — or planning to migrate — away from traditional WAN and remote access VPN solutions to SASE

  • 54% of organizations have already deployed or are planning to deploy endpoint threat detection and response technologies in their security operations center

Read the full report here.

About the Author

Dark Reading Staff

Dark Reading

Dark Reading is a leading cybersecurity media site.

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