Over the past few years, cybersecurity has become a major concern for businesses around the world. With the total cost of cybercrime projected to reach $8 trillion in 2023—with a T, not a B—it’s no wonder that cybersecurity is top of mind for leaders in all industries and regions.
Despite increasing attention and budgets for cyber security in recent years, attacks are becoming more frequent and more severe. While threat actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated and organized, this is only one piece of the puzzle in determining why cybercrime continues to rise and what organizations can do to stay secure.
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Abundance of Cyber Spending, Shortage of Cyber Security
It’s easy to assume that the solution to the cybersecurity problem is money—to hire more security experts, to invest in more tools and technology. If only it were that simple.
For one thing, experienced cyber professionals are in short supply. (ISC)2 estimates that there are 3.4 million unfilled cyber positions globally – a 26% year-over-year increase from 2020 to 2021. Additionally, nearly 70% of cybersecurity professionals “feel that their organization there aren’t enough cybersecurity staff to be effective.” So even if an organization has the budget to hire a small army of cybersecurity experts, it may not be able to find them.
In addition, data from the past few years shows that organizations are investing more and more in cyber security every year. Gartner predicts that global spending on security and risk management will grow by more than 11% in 2023, to $188 billion from just $158 billion in 2021. This trend is expected to continue, with global spending on cybersecurity will grow 11% each year in 2026 to reach a total of $267.3 billion.
Despite these significant cost increases and many businesses purchasing multiple off-the-shelf security solutions—one study found that the average organization has 76 security technologies deployed—breaches of corporate networks, systems, and data continue to become more routine.
Breach is becoming more frequent – and more expensive
It’s no secret that cybercrime is a serious challenge, but just how big is the problem? Some data shows that the number of cyber attacks was 38% higher in 2022 compared to the previous year. This comes after a reported 50% year-on-year jump from 2020 to 2021.
While not all of these attacks are targeted or sophisticated, the sheer volume of attacks increases the likelihood that an attack will go undetected – and it only takes one successful attack for an organization to face serious costs and reputational damage.
Too often, organizations respond to cyber incidents only after the attack is in an advanced stage, with very few clues as to how the breach occurred and what the threat actors may be up to. This leaves security teams scrambling to catch up, which slows down response and recovery processes.
Unfortunately, as the time required to return to normal work increases, so does the cost of the incident. According to IBM’s 2022 data breach cost report, the average organization needs an astonishing 277 days to fully identify and contain a breach. This raises the average cost of a data breach to $4.35 million – a figure high enough to pose an existential risk to many small and medium-sized businesses. Even for larger businesses, that amount of money is nothing to scoff at.
A strategic shift is needed to enable organizations to anticipate threats, implement preventive strategies, and improve agility to detect and eliminate threats as quickly as possible.
The Journey to Impact Intelligence
Without exception, every organization with a digital presence will experience cyberattacks. The most effective approach is to identify and respond to the attack as early as possible. The sooner a threat is detected and eliminated, the less likely the attack will be successful and cause damage to the organization.
This begs the question: how can organizations minimize the time it takes to detect and remediate a threat? The answer: impactful intelligence that improves risk visibility and enables cyber agility in responding to and eliminating threats.
In the Infosec world, it is often said that threat intelligence must be “actionable.” This is true, but it is only one aspect of what constitutes valuable intelligence. In today’s hostile threat landscape, intelligence must be impactful.
Impactful threat intelligence should have 4 properties:
- Accurate – intelligence must be true and accurate
- Appropriate – intelligence must be relevant to the organization
- Acting – there must be actions that the organization can take to overcome the threat
- Profitable – the cost of the threat must be greater than the cost of removal
This new framework brings a necessary shift from viewing cybersecurity as a strictly technical issue to a new way of thinking where cybersecurity is viewed as a business challenge that must be addressed in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Threat intelligence can no longer be just an expense – it must be a business tool that delivers measurable value to the enterprise.
Cyberint, a leading threat intelligence provider headquartered in Israel, is driving the evolution toward impactful intelligence with the Argos Edge platform. To learn more about Cyberint’s new approach to threat intelligence, watch this Journey to Impact Intelligence webinar with Cyberint CEO Yochai Korem.
There are always risks when it comes to cybersecurity, but impactful intelligence greatly reduces the likelihood of a costly breach and strengthens the security posture as much as possible. The time for impactful intelligence is upon us.