Global Firms Fear the Worst Over Risk Management Failures

Over half (54%) of global organizations believe their risk assessments aren’t mature enough, potentially exposing them to escalating cyber-threats, according to Trend Micro.

The security vendor polled over 6290 IT and business decision makers from over 29 countries to compile its latest research.

A third (32%) of respondents said that assessing risk is the main area of attack surface management they struggle with. As a result, they feel most exposed to ransomware (83%), phishing (85%) and IoT attacks (81%).

Many (28%) said they are struggling with manual approaches to attack surface mapping, while a third (32%) claimed they’re laboring with multiple tech stacks.

As a result, only two-fifths (40%) can accurately use risk assessments to detail things like attack attempt frequency and trends, risk levels for individuals assets, and industry benchmarks.

This is leaving the organization exposed and business leaders in the dark. Over half (51%) of respondents said they struggle to quantify risk exposure to leadership, while only 3% believe their C-suite fully understands cyber-risk at present.

“We already knew that organizations are concerned about a fast-expanding digital attack surface with limited visibility,” said Trend Micro technical director, Bharat Mistry.

“Now we know that they also need urgent help to discover and manage cyber-risk across this environment. In many cases, the challenge is compounded by siloed point solutions. Organizations must search for a single platform that gives them the certainty and security they require.”

Many (39%) respondents are investing in platform approaches to improve visibility and control. It’s believed that siloed point solutions can lead to coverage gaps and integration challenges which allow threats to thrive.

Along with improved visibility (38%), respondents reported faster breach detection (35%) and accelerated response (34%) as the biggest advantages of consolidating security in this way.

In a previous report, Trend Micro warned that 43% of global firms feel their digital attack surface is “spiralling out of control.”