Nation State Cyberattack Concerns Heightened Among CISOs Following United States’ Military Action Against Iran, Reveals Osterman Research Survey
Equifax Breach Indictment Shows that Hostile Governments Target Private Enterprises
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., — Feb. 20 — Anomali, a leader in intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions, today announced results of an Osterman Research survey revealing CISOs’ reactions to the current situation between the United States and Iran. Anomali sponsored the survey to determine whether or not CISOs were concerned that the elimination of former Iran Revolutionary Guard General Qassam Soleimani would lead to increased cyber risk for their organizations. The survey includes responses from more than 200 CISOs and others acting in this role, within organizations that have 5,000 employees or more. Key findings revealed:
Seven in 10 CISOs in large organizations believe that the current situation between the United States and Iran has heightened the level of cyber risk that their organizations face.
The potential for nation-state attacks, particularly after major international incidents, is a significant concern for more than one-half of CISOs. 80 percent consider such attacks to be either “serious” or “extremely serious.”
Seven in 10 large organizations can completely identify all of the attacks, infiltrations, hacks, malware infections and other incidents that have occurred in their network during the previous 12 months. Three in 10 organizations are not able to do so. Moreover, only 59 percent of organizations can consistently identify/detect cyber threats that are backed by nation-states.
More than 80 percent of CISOs believe that their industry peers are mature and proactive in the context of dealing with sophisticated security threats. Only 21 percent of organizations report that they are “completely prepared” to deal with cyber threats that are backed by nation-states.
93 percent consider the use of threat intelligence to be either helpful to critically important in dealing with nation-state attacks.
“In the cybersecurity community, we frequently hear conversations about how private-sector organizations do not have to be as concerned about nation-state adversaries. Some think that these threat actors are mostly focused on rival governments,” said Michael Osterman, president of Osterma Research. “CISOs’ concerns about nation state attacks are fully justified. The recent indictment issued by the United States Department of Justice charging members of China’s military as the culprits behind the infamous Equifax attack shows that private businesses are at high risk of being breached by attackers backed by malicious governments.”
“Anomali is committed to helping all organizations to understand where the most serious risk comes from and to providing technologies and guidance that can help them to mount strong defenses,” said Nicholas Hayden, Anomali Global Head of Threat Intelligence. “It is encouraging to discover that security leaders are taking the threat of nation-state attacks seriously. It is also good to learn that they recognize the high value that threat intelligence delivers in helping them to mitigate the problem.”
The survey and report includes complete methodology and demographics: Osterman Research-Nation-State Attack Survey: Top CISO Concerns
About Anomali
Anomali® delivers intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions. Anomali AltitudeTM platform solutions include Anomali ThreatStream®, Anomali MatchTM, and Anomali LensTM. Private enterprises and public organizations use Anomali to harness threat data, information, and intelligence to make effective cybersecurity decisions and detect and respond to threats. The Anomali partner program provides access to threat feeds from all layers of the web and delivers seamless integrations into leading security infrastructure technologies. The Anomali Threat Research Team provides actionable threat intelligence that helps customers, partners and the overall security community to detect and mitigate the most serious threats to their organizations. Anomali customers include more than 350 global organizations, many of the Global 2000 and Fortune 500, and large government and defense organizations around the world. Founded in 2013, it is backed by leading venture firms including GV, Paladin Capital Group, Institutional Venture Partners, and General Catalyst. Learn more at www.anomali.com
