86 percent of security professionals view unknown risks as top concern

A new study from managed detection and response specialist Critical Start shows concerns about unknown risks have increased 17 percent compared to last year, with 86 percent naming them as a top issue.

The research, conducted in partnership with Censuswide, finds 66 percent of businesses report limited visibility and insight into their cyber risk profiles and 65 percent of executives express concerns over misalignment between cybersecurity investments and the organization's risk reduction priorities.

These findings are comparable to last year's, 66 percent and 61 percent respectively, indicating that organizations' cyber risk management protocols haven't improved.

"Threat detection and response is essential for organizations, as this represents the final line of defense before attacks escalate into significant breaches or cause major business disruption," says Randy Watkins, chief technology officer at Critical Start. "Based on our research, 99.4 percent of cyber leaders want to combine proactive security elements into their detect and response capabilities. By incorporating capabilities such as finding hidden assets, endpoint coverage gaps, and failed log ingestion, organizations can improve security operations outcomes."

Among other findings 83 percent of cybersecurity professionals report experiencing a cyber breach requiring attention, despite having traditional threat-based detect and respond security measures, a significant increase from previous years.

In 2023 37 percent of cybersecurity professionals cited a lack of expertise as a challenge faced in effective cyber risk management. This year, that number increased to 50 percent. 99 percent of respondents say they plan to implement a managed cyber risk reduction (MCRR) solution to continuously monitor and mitigate cyber risks. In addition 99 percent of these same organizations are planning to offload segments of cyber risk reduction projects to security providers, which is an increase of eight percent compared to 2023.

The report finds that 81 percent of organizations are planning to prioritize proactive risk reduction strategies to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape. This includes continuous risk monitoring, threat intelligence integration, and timely incident response.

The full report is available from the Critical Start site.

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