Skip to main content

Responding to Cybersecurity Incidents Still a Major Challenge

A study conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Resilient found that 77 percent of respondents admit they do not have a formal cyber security incident response plan (CSIRP) applied consistently across their organization.

Nearly half of the respondents reported that their incident response plan is either informal/ad hoc or completely non-existent.

Despite this lack of formal planning, 72 percent of organizations report feeling more Cyber Resilient today than they were last year. Highly resilient organizations (61 percent) attribute their confidence to their ability to hire skilled personnel — but organizations need both technology and people to be Cyber Resilient. In fact, 60 percent of respondents consider a lack of investment in AI and machine learning as the biggest barrier to Cyber Resilience.

This confidence may be misplaced, with the analysis revealing that 57 percent of respondents said the time to resolve an incident has increased, while 65 percent reported the severity of the attacks has increased. These areas represent some of the key factors impacting overall cyber resiliency. These problems are further compounded by just 31 percent of those surveyed having an adequate Cyber Resilience budget in place and difficulty retaining and hiring IT Security professionals (77 percent).

“Organizations may be feeling more Cyber Resilient today, and the biggest reason why was hiring skilled personnel,” said Ted Julian, VP of Product Management and Co-Founder, IBM Resilient. “Having the right staff in place is critical but arming them with the most modern tools to augment their work is equally as important. A response plan that orchestrates human intelligence with machine intelligence is the only way security teams are going to get ahead of the threat and improve overall Cyber Resilience.”

The lack of a consistent CSIRP is a persistent trend each year despite a key finding from IBM’s 2017 Cost of a Data Breach Study. The cost of a data breach was nearly $1 million lower on average when organizations were able to contain the breach in less than thirty days — highlighting the value and importance of having a strong CSIRP.

“A sharp focus in a few crucial areas can make a big difference when it comes to Cyber Resilience,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon. “Ensuring the security function is equipped with a proper incident response plan, staffing, and budget will lead to a stronger security posture and better overall Cyber Resilience.”

About the Study: Conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Resilient, The 2018 Cyber Resilient Organization is the third annual benchmark study on Cyber Resilience — an organization’s ability to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of cyberattacks. The global survey features insight from more than 2,800 security and IT professionals from around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Australia.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

Responding to Cybersecurity Incidents Still a Major Challenge

A study conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Resilient found that 77 percent of respondents admit they do not have a formal cyber security incident response plan (CSIRP) applied consistently across their organization.

Nearly half of the respondents reported that their incident response plan is either informal/ad hoc or completely non-existent.

Despite this lack of formal planning, 72 percent of organizations report feeling more Cyber Resilient today than they were last year. Highly resilient organizations (61 percent) attribute their confidence to their ability to hire skilled personnel — but organizations need both technology and people to be Cyber Resilient. In fact, 60 percent of respondents consider a lack of investment in AI and machine learning as the biggest barrier to Cyber Resilience.

This confidence may be misplaced, with the analysis revealing that 57 percent of respondents said the time to resolve an incident has increased, while 65 percent reported the severity of the attacks has increased. These areas represent some of the key factors impacting overall cyber resiliency. These problems are further compounded by just 31 percent of those surveyed having an adequate Cyber Resilience budget in place and difficulty retaining and hiring IT Security professionals (77 percent).

“Organizations may be feeling more Cyber Resilient today, and the biggest reason why was hiring skilled personnel,” said Ted Julian, VP of Product Management and Co-Founder, IBM Resilient. “Having the right staff in place is critical but arming them with the most modern tools to augment their work is equally as important. A response plan that orchestrates human intelligence with machine intelligence is the only way security teams are going to get ahead of the threat and improve overall Cyber Resilience.”

The lack of a consistent CSIRP is a persistent trend each year despite a key finding from IBM’s 2017 Cost of a Data Breach Study. The cost of a data breach was nearly $1 million lower on average when organizations were able to contain the breach in less than thirty days — highlighting the value and importance of having a strong CSIRP.

“A sharp focus in a few crucial areas can make a big difference when it comes to Cyber Resilience,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon. “Ensuring the security function is equipped with a proper incident response plan, staffing, and budget will lead to a stronger security posture and better overall Cyber Resilience.”

About the Study: Conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Resilient, The 2018 Cyber Resilient Organization is the third annual benchmark study on Cyber Resilience — an organization’s ability to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of cyberattacks. The global survey features insight from more than 2,800 security and IT professionals from around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Australia.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...