94 percent of businesses hit by cyberattacks in the last year

Cyber exposure company Tenable has published a global industry study, carried out by Forrester Consulting, that reveals the vast majority of organizations (94 percent) have experienced a business-impacting cyberattack in the past 12 months.

Yet despite this only four out of 10 security leaders say they can answer the fundamental question, 'How secure, or at risk, are we?' with a high level of confidence.

Fewer than 50 percent of security leaders say they are framing cybersecurity threats within the context of a specific business risk. For example, though 96 percent of respondents had developed response strategies to the COVID-19 pandemic, 75 percent of business and security leaders admitted their response strategies were only 'somewhat' aligned.

Measuring and managing cybersecurity as a strategic business risk does deliver demonstrable results though. Compared to their siloed peers, business-aligned security leaders are eight times more likely to be highly confident in their ability to report on their organizations' level of security or risk.

90 percent are very or completely confident in their ability to demonstrate that cybersecurity investments are positively impacting business performance compared with only 55 percent of their siloed counterparts. Also 85 percent have metrics to track cybersecurity ROI and impact on business performance versus just 25 percent of their siloed peers.

"In the future, there will be two kinds of CISO -- those who align themselves directly with the business and everyone else. The only way to thrive in this era of digital acceleration is to bring cyber into every business question, decision and investment," says Renaud Deraison, chief technology officer and co-founder at Tenable. "We believe this study shows that forward-leaning organizations view cybersecurity strategy as essential to innovation and that when security and the business work hand-in-glove, the results can be transformational."

The full report is available from the Tenable site.

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