"Executives Take More Cybersecurity Risks Than Office Workers"

Ivanti collaborated with cybersecurity experts and polled 6,500 executive leaders, cybersecurity professionals, and office workers to better understand current cybersecurity threat perception and how businesses are preparing for future threats. According to the survey, despite 97 percent of leaders and security experts saying that their firm is as prepared or more prepared to defend against cybersecurity attacks than it was a year ago, one in five do not believe their organization could prevent a damaging breach. The report indicates that firms are racing to strengthen against cyber threats, yet the industry still struggles with a reactive, checklist attitude. This is particularly seen in how security teams prioritize patches. While 92 percent of security experts said they have a process for prioritizing patches, they also said all types of patches rank high, meaning that none do. About half of respondents said they are "very prepared" to deal with the growing threat landscape, which includes ransomware, poor encryption, and malicious employees. Still, expected safeguards such as deprovisioning credentials are ignored one-third of the time. Nearly half of those surveyed believe a former employee or contractor still has active access to company systems and files. Leaders were found to engage in more risky behavior and are four times more likely to be phishing victims than office workers. This article continues to discuss key findings from the survey to understand the perception of cybersecurity threats and how companies are preparing for future threats.

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