"Budget and Momentum Are Key to Cybersecurity Automation Maturity -- And CISOs Are Feeling Left Behind"
As cyber threats become more sophisticated and the human and financial resources available to combat them become scarce, there is an increasing demand for cybersecurity automation. By reducing reliance on manual processes, intelligent automation of key cybersecurity processes can significantly improve an organization's posture while also supporting under-pressure employees. ThreatQuotient surveyed 750 cybersecurity professionals, including from organizations in the UK, the US, and Australia, to gain insight into how far organizations have progressed in their efforts to deploy automation. Respondents included CISOs, Security Operation Center (SOC) leaders, Incident Response (IR) heads, cyber threat intelligence heads, and Information Technology (IT) security solutions architects from a variety of industries, including defense, retail, financial services, central government, and critical national infrastructure. Respondents worked for companies with 2,000 to 10,000+ employees. This was a follow-up to ThreatQuotient's 2021 UK survey, which revealed that businesses lacked confidence in the outcomes of automation processes. Cybersecurity automation has gained traction in the intervening year, with this year's results indicating that concerns have shifted to more practical deployment issues, such as integrating with existing technology and a lack of workforce skills. These difficulties became clear when respondents were asked to rate the current maturity of their cybersecurity operations on a scale adapted from one developed by Accenture. ThreatQuotient wanted to understand how cybersecurity professionals perceive the sophistication of their setup and how it contributes to the overall business. The responses show significant differences in how different roles perceive their security operations maturity, and when cross-referenced with responses to other questions, it was discovered that existing automation adoption and increased budget allocation are linked to maturity. The 262 CISOs surveyed were the least confident in the maturity of their setup. This article continues to discuss key findings from ThreatQuotient's report on the state of cybersecurity automation adoption.