Balancing cybersecurity with convenience and progress

Changing approaches to cybersecurity have led to slow but steady progress in defense and protection. Still, competing interests create a growing challenge for cybersecurity decision makers and practitioners, according to CompTIA.

The state of cybersecurity

Most business and technology professionals feel that cybersecurity is improving, both generally and within their organizations. They also acknowledge that the stakes have grown dramatically, with the number of cybercriminals and threats skyrocketing. At the same time, companies are capturing far more data, creating new privacy implications for customers and operational risk for their internal workflows.

“Even small gains in satisfaction are welcome, but there is plenty of room for improvement,” said Seth Robinson, VP, industry research, CompTIA. “Businesses have begun to consider cybersecurity as a critical function. The next stage requires a multi-faceted approach of processes, policies, people and products.”

Organizations are responding on each of these fronts. Generative AI is viewed as a tool that can help manage the growing complexity of cybersecurity. There is a heightened commitment to workforce education, including training for all staff and support for certification for technical professionals. Risk management and zero trust practices are gaining a larger footprint.

The challenge becomes even greater as organizations go through digital transformation and tie technology initiatives more closely to business success, according to Robinson.

“Excessive cybersecurity measures can hinder overall progress, but if measures are too relaxed, it can lead to serious incidents, resulting in potentially greater negative impacts,” he explained. “This balancing act is a full-time job. With technology trends evolving and attack patterns changing, true equilibrium may be impossible to achieve.”

Threat focus areas for organizations include malware, cited by 40% of U.S. respondents, ransomware (33%), firmware hacking (31%), IoT-based attacks (31%), hardware-based attacks (31%) and phishing (30%). The potential damage from an attack can be catastrophic. Among U.S. respondents, cybersecurity incidents had a severe impact at 22% of organizations, and a moderate impact at 43%.

Four critical variables in cybersecurity balancing

CompTIA believes there are four critical variables that must be considered in balancing the cybersecurity equation. The report identifies trends to watch in 2024 in these areas.

Product: Companies see a wide range of likely uses for generative AI in cybersecurity over the next two to three years.

• Monitoring network traffic and detecting malware (53%)
• Analyzing user behavior patterns (50%)
• Automating response to cybersecurity incidents (48%)
• Automating configuration of cybersecurity infrastructure (45%)
• Predicting areas where future breaches may occur (45%)
• Generating tests of cybersecurity defenses (45%)

People: By a slim margin, the top challenge facing organizations is a cybersecurity skill gap. To narrow the gap, 50% of U.S. organizations use internal training to improve cybersecurity skills, with 43% are helping employees pursue certifications to validate their knowledge.

Policy: Risk management is becoming the primary method for assessing the connection between cybersecurity efforts and business operations. Just over half of U.S. firms take a leading approach to identify and manage risks and related spending. Nearly 30% assess risks but do not use a formal risk management framework.

Process: Building cybersecurity processes and integrating cybersecurity into business workflows drives many functional decisions, from evaluating new technologies, to governance, risk and compliance, to workforce education. The general intent of any process, whether direct or indirect, is to align with the principles of a zero trust framework. Although only 28% of firms identify a zero trust framework as part of their strategy, more organizations are following individual practices commonly included in a zero trust approach.