Cyberattacks increase as security talent remains scarce

A new survey of more than 1,200 security leaders reveals they've seen an increase in cyberattacks while their teams are facing widening talent gaps.

According to the latest State of Security report from Splunk 65 percent of respondents say they have seen an increase in attempted cyberattacks. In addition, many have been directly impacted by data breaches and costly ransomware attacks, which have left security teams exhausted.

Almost half (49 percent) of organizations say they have suffered a data breach over the past two years, an increase from 39 percent a year earlier. 79 percent of respondents say they've encountered ransomware attacks, and 35 percent admit that one or more of those attacks has led them to lose access to data and systems.

In addition 59 percent of security teams say they had to devote significant time and resources to remediation, an increase from 42 percent a year ago. 54 percent of respondents report that their business-critical applications have suffered from unplanned outages related to cybersecurity incidents on at least a monthly basis.

The median time to recover from unplanned downtime linked to cybersecurity incidents is 14 hours. Respondents estimate the cost of this downtime averages about $200,000 per hour. 64 percent of security professionals have also stated that it's challenging to keep up with new security requirements, up from 49 percent a year ago.

"This survey has revealed that organizations are deeply concerned about supply chain attacks, especially after the SolarWinds hacks of 2020 and the Log4Shell incident in late 2021," says Ryan Kovar, distinguished security strategist at Splunk. "Ninety percent of organizations reported that they have increased their focus on third-party risk assessments as a result of those high-profile attacks. In my 20 years in IT security, I've never seen software supply chain threats given this level of visibility. Unfortunately, this will only increase the already intense pressure security teams face."

On top of all this the skills shortage is biting, 53 percent of respondents say they can't hire enough staff and 58 percent cite an inability to find talent with the right skills. 68 percent say that talent shortages have directly led to the failure of one or more projects/initiatives, while 73 percent of respondents say that workers have resigned, citing burnout.

You can get the full report from the Splunk site.

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