CISOs are constantly challenged with the ever-changing threat landscape and the evolution of IT infrastructure. There are more open networks that need to be secured, new technologies to adopt, malicious attackers to battle and defeat, and new identities to manage.
A CISO then has to prioritize which area they need to focus on to secure their organization, but identifying those areas can be difficult.
You can learn from the best and gain insight into what they do to prevent security breaches and enhance the overall protection of their organizations. In April of 2017, 342 CISOs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific answered a survey that explored their top priorities and what they do as successful security leaders. What was found was that security leaders who embraced technology were much more successful in avoiding cyber threats and breaches altogether.
The Cyber Race to Keep Up
Innovative and effective security technology comes highly valued. There are so many threats to avoid that many gaps need to be filled. Failing to keep pace with the evolution of security technology can jeopardize a company’s existence. Outdated security technology will do nothing to protect your business from threats that are much smarter than it.
The constant evolution and growth of cyber threats is an ongoing battle. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents stated that rapidly evolving threats were the greatest challenge to their company. That means CISOs need to aggressively keep pace and never let their guard down.
Read More: IT Security Investments
While cyber threats are growing bigger and better, security leaders are now seeking ways to improve their ability to react to them. To counter these attacks, CISOs are improving and will continue to improve reducing the time it takes to detect threats, operational efficiency, preventing breaches in the first place, and reducing response time.
What do Top CISOs do?
Hackers are a huge problem for organizations. Not all of them are successful, though, in gaining access to company data. CISOs who’ve never experienced a breach are more likely to use newer and more security technologies. The CISOs in the survey were asked many questions such as how they collaborated across departments, the number of their security processes that were automated, and the number of security technologies they currently used. Those who reported never having a breach were using multiple security technologies to safeguard information and the company.
That means security leaders look to new technology to help them succeed and accomplish their cybersecurity goals. More trust is placed in them compared to automation, other security vendors, or staff. This fact is more pronounced among CISOs who’ve avoided hackers; they’re more likely to name technology as a contributing factor to their success by 17 percentage points over those who’ve dealt with a security breach.
There you have it—insight into what the top CISOs around the world do to prevent breaches and other malicious activity. Going forward in your security goals, invest in many security technologies that are newer and don’t be afraid to depend heavily on them.
