CV_Winter_21

Companies with small security teams, generally small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), are facing a number of unique challenges, placing these organizations at greater risk than their larger enter- prise counterparts, argue executives at Cynet in a new report. These enhanced risks, Cynet said, are moving 100 percent of these compa- nies to outsource at least some aspects of security threat mitigation in order to safeguard IT assets. In the survey of 200 CISOs at SMEs with five or fewer security staff members and cybersecurity budgets of $ 1 million or less, it was found that a majority of these organizations were overwhelmed by the endless volley of cyberattacks. This has been due in large part to SMEs being inundated by many of the same threats facing larger organizations, while lacking the financial resources, specialist staff, training, and proper tools to consis- tently remediate threats. According to the survey, 63 percent of CISOs feel their risk of attack is higher compared to enter- prises, despite the fact that enter- prises have a larger target on their back, while 57 percent of SME CISOs admitted that their ability to effective- ly protect their companies is overtly lower than they would like it to be. Further, 57 percent of compa- nies indicated they do not have enough skill and experience to protect against cyber-attacks. And 80 percent of responding CISOs said they would like to invest in more automated security solutions as they look for innovative ways to do more with fewer heads. As a result of the aforemen- tioned, 100 percent of small security teams are outsourcing security mitigation to an external provider with 53 percent outsourcing to an MDR service and the balance outsourcing to an MSSP provider. The top tactics used by these smaller operations to improve processes was to invest in automat- ed solutions and processes (80 percent), followed by investments in security training and certifications (61 percent), consolidation of security tools and platforms (61 percent), replacement of complex security technologies (52 percent) and outsourcing to service providers to fill security tool gaps (51 percent). o CYBER PATROL Cynet 2021 CISO Survey Reveals Need for SMEs to Rethink Cybersecurity Strategy 55 January - February, 2021 | CHANNEL V ISION