451 Research and Vormetric have released a survey of more than 1,100 senior IT executives from large enterprises focusing on their cybersecurity practices. The results of the survey are actually quite alarming and contradict many security experts when it comes to data protection. In fact, according to the survey, 64 percent of the IT executives in question believed that “simply meeting cybersecurity compliance requirements, as opposed to striving for best practices, is ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ effective at preventing data breaches.” This staggering number is very hard to believe considering the survey also pointed out that 61 percent of survey takers claimed their business had experienced a data breach in the past with 22 percent of them happening within the year.
In an interview with SC Magazine, 451 Research Security Analyst Garrett Bekker shared his thoughts on these frightening numbers: “Being compliant doesn’t mean you’re secure. I just think old habits tend to die hard in security and it’s going to take some time to educate people that they need more to do more than just check off compliance boxes.” Additionally, the survey suggested that meeting compliance standards and brand protection were the two biggest incentives for spending money on IT security. However, it does appear that organizations are beginning to spend more money on cybersecurity as 58 percent of respondents said they plan to increase expenditures to protect against cyberattacks and data breaches.