FireEye's cybersecurity company released its first FireEye Cyber Trendscape report, revealing that the majority (56 percent) of organizations believe that the risk of cyber threats will increase in 2020.
To compile its report, the company interviewed more than 800 CISOs and other senior executives from North America, Europe, and Asia to better understand their attitudes toward more prevalent in cybersecurity.
Of those surveyed, half (50%) in the world said that their organization was not covered by cyber insurance. Germany ranks second among non-cyber insurance respondents at 60%, which is quite high compared to the UK (32%) and France (43%).
Fines resulting from compliance regulations, such as the GDPR, were the second-lowest of a list of nine possible concerns, and the FireEye survey found that 24% of respondents worldwide considered these fines a concern. In the UK, 39% of respondents said these fines were cause for concern, followed by 22% in Germany and 19% in France. However, the loss of sensitive data was the main concern in the world, as well as in three of the European countries studied.
Cyberthreats
FireEye also found that a lack of cybersecurity training remained a problem, with one in five (21%) German respondents admitting that their organizations had no cybersecurity training. This figure is well above the world average of 11%, as well as that of France (1%) and the United Kingdom (10%).
According to the report, one in ten British companies (11%) said they did not have a cyber attack or a crime intervention plan. It was the third highest country behind Canada (19%) and Japan (15%). However, at the same time, the German response was 5% and only 2% of respondents in France said they did not consider cyber attack or violent response, while the global average was 8%.
Regarding emerging technologies, 86% of respondents from around the world reported having implemented blockchain initiatives. However, 21% of German respondents said that they had not searched for the blockchain and that they did not consider it a priority. This compares with 10% in France and 14% in the UK. However, in each of the three countries, 40% of respondents said they had launched an initiative to better understand AI and its security.
Eric Ouellet, FireEye Global Security Strategist, provided additional information on the report's findings:
"An interesting aspect of this new research is that it highlights the different attitudes that influence the way people and organizations approach cybersecurity around the world. One attitude that should emerge and that people should reconsider is to let compliance dictate security standards when in fact they should aim for a higher level of protection. For example, the report found that 29% of organizations had informal "as needed" training programs that focused on meeting basic security requirements. Compliance. Organizations that take a more holistic approach in this area and others are likely to be better equipped to deal with security threats. "