Organisations focusing on IoT and cloud while developing cyber defence systems: Wipro study

One in five chief information security officers (CISOs) globally are now reporting directly to the chief executive officer while 15 per cent of organisations have a security budget of more than 10 per cent of their overall IT budgets, according to a new report by Wipro released on Tuesday.

At the same time, 65 per cent of organisations are tracking and reporting regulatory compliance. And 25 per cent of organisations are carrying out security assessments in every build cycle. In addition, 39 per cent of organisations now have a dedicated cyber insurance policy.

All of these points showed dramatic increases from previous years, said the State of Cybersecurity Report 2019 that highlights rising importance of cybersecurity defence to global leaders, the emergence of the CISO as a C-suite role and an unprecedented focus on security as a pervasive part of business operations.

The annual study is based on three months of primary and secondary research, including surveys of security leadership, operational analysts, and 211 global organisations across 27 countries.

"With organisations riding the digital wave, security strategies need to be enhanced to address the changing landscape and enable a smooth and safe transition," said Raja Ukil, Global Head for Cybersecurity and Risk Services at Wipro Ltd.

Security is also evolving to be a pervasive part of core business operations, and countries are establishing active cyber defence strategies and functions to foster partnerships with the private sector enterprises and with other countries, he said. "Amid growing threats, leaders are collaborating more than ever before in new and innovative ways to mitigate the risks."

The report said while the number of significant publicly reported breaches decreased by 25 per cent, the number of records exposed during attacks increased by 164 per cent to 232 records exposed per second.

Attackers also targeted more specific information perceived to have higher monetary value. Nearly 38 per cent of the data records reached or targeted were a combination of personally identifiable information and security credentials such as passwords.

Significantly, said the report, cryptominers are the new big threat. Cryptominer malware surged to become the new emerging threat. About 25 per cent of global organisations were targeted by Coinhive malware alone in 2018. Nearly 80 per cent of all cryptomining attacks originated from just three sources: Coinhive, Cryptoloot, and JSEcoin. Ransomware attacks by contrast declined in 2018.

With cloud and IoT adoption on the rise, 28 per cent of organisations perceive cloud account hijacking as one of the top security threats to their cloud environments. About 26 per cent of organisations are prioritising security assessment of IoT devices to mitigate new risks, the report said.

.