Last week a report that disclosed there were on average about 1 million new strains of malware released each and every day. Who could miss all of the news coverage of new and previous breach incidents?
McAfee just released a study saying cyber criminals upped their game in 2014. Meanwhile, Congress is moving ahead with cyber security legislation.
All that plus the abundance of new stories and reports about current cyber threat issues combine to make you scratch your head. In discussion about the current state of cyber threats faced by organizations and their response, we all too often get caught up in the hype-cycle and get a distorted view of what is really going on in the cybersecurity domain.
Last week in a meeting with a CISO at a critical infrastructure provider, I learned that he could not address a cyber risk and had recently suffered a budget cut! Now keep in mind we recently saw articles about CEOs and members of boards of directors becoming much more involved in cyber security and technology in general.
However, there is hardly a day that passes without some news about a cyber crime or attack. News coverage, cyber threat reports, software vulnerability disclosures, testimony before Congress and the list of cyber threat coverage goes on and on. That is what makes this glimpse into the real world of cyber security so concerning! This domain is so vast you could probably prove everything we read right and wrong.
Ironically the same day the budget discussion with the CISOs an industry report stated that between 2015 and 2019 cyber security is projected to experience a CAGR just under 12 percent.
Stop and think for a moment. On one hand you have a critical infrastructure provider cutting their cyber security budget; and on the other you have a projected 12 percent CAGR for cyber security. Makes you wonder what the real state of cyber security is!
