As cyber threats grow, enterprises get ready for battle

According to a report conducted by PwC US in conjunction with CIO magazine and CSO, while financial losses from cyber-attacks have decreased from USD 2.7 million in 2014 to USD 2.5 million in 2015, enterprises are improving in their ability to detect breaches that are underway. In fact, enterprises reported a 38% increase in detected incidents, in 2015 compared to 2014. They are also seeing more intellectual property theft, which jumped 56% in 2014. Another interesting finding: while both current and previous employees constituted the bulk of attacks aimed at these enterprises, there have been a noticeable surge in breaches attributed to current and former partners and suppliers. Data breaches attributed to them are up to 59% this year, from 46% in 2014.

Also with 69% of respondents using cloud-based security services, the cloud has matured, without a doubt, as an established delivery method of security controls and services: real-time monitoring and analytics (56%), authentication (55%), identity and access management (48%), threat intelligence (47%), and end-point protection (44%).

When it comes to providing those data sharing standards and methods, among the organizations that do not collaborate, findings reveal that it was that lack of sharing processes and standards that were holding them back. The executive order hopes to change that with the creation of Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO) that are broader in scope than the current and industry-specific Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC). The ISAOs will include cybersecurity sharing among specific industries as well as for specific geographies and security events as needed.

Also, while cyber insurance has been around for decades and has not managed to grow into more than a small niche, the idea is finally starting to take hold. Cybersecurity insurance is one of the fastest-growing segments in insurance. PwC forecasts the global cyber insurance market growth from 2.5 billion this year to USD 7.5 billion by 2020. Numbers show that 59% of respondents have purchased some level of cyber insurance. Currently, such policies commonly cover data destruction, denial of service attacks, theft and extortion; they also may include incident response and remediation, investigation and cybersecurity audit expenses, other areas of coverage include privacy notifications, crisis management, forensic investigations, data restoration and business interruption.

The research also indicates that the long-term investment enterprises have made into security frameworks such as ISO 27001 and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework are paying off. Benefits respondents cited include: the ability to better and more quickly detect and mitigate security incidents (47%), better able to identify and prioritize risks (49%), sensitive data is more secure (45%), and a better understanding gaps in policy (37%).

According to the report, a big part of moving forward securely is the use of security data analytics. A sizable 59% of respondents are using security data analytics to some extent, and many are citing improvements such as better understanding of external threats (61%), better understanding of internal threats (49%), and a better understanding of user behavior (39%).