Digital transformation helps companies work smarter yet makes them vulnerable to breaches

While digital transformation helps companies work smarter, there is a risk that the ongoing digitization may unlock a host of security vulnerabilities that can cost companies money, time, intellectual property, and customer trust, according to a Canon survey.

All organizations surveyed across a range of verticals experienced an alarming amount of cyber threats over the past year.

Conducted by ABI Research, the survey of more than one thousand U.S. IT professionals reveals three, pertinent cybersecurity threats:

• Malware and ransomware: More than one-third of respondents consider malware and ransomware a first priority threat. Yet, 25% of respondents say that employees have limited to no security awareness, nor do they understand their role in prevention.
• Compromised devices: In today’s digital age, and with remote working trends on the rise, 21% of surveyed IT decision-makers rate compromised devices as a priority threat. Respondents then rank data security, network security, and user authentication & ID management as the top three most relevant technologies to help counteract this threat.
• Social engineering: The human factor is a persistent threat. In fact, survey respondents consider malicious insiders (30%) and human error (25%) to be the two top threat sources.

Survey results include additional gaps, such as lack of appropriate cybersecurity spend across certain verticals; however, it also indicates hope, with nearly 25% of those surveyed stating that they are looking to increase investments in the key growth area of cloud security in the future.