IT and Security Leaders Face Up to One Cyberattack Per Week

IT and security leaders in Singapore must address, on average, one cyberattack per week, according to a new study by Rubrik Zero Labs.

Rubrik, which calls itself a zero trust data security company, commissioned a study from Wakefield Research to gather insights from more than 1,600 global security and IT leaders, including 125 respondents in Singapore. The findings exposed rising security risks, damaging entire companies and their IT and security teams.

The State of Data Security report revealed that in Singapore, nearly every leader surveyed experienced a cyberattack over the past year, and on average, faced 55 attacks in that timeframe — or almost one cyberattack per week. Along with this, 53% of respondents reported a data breach, and 59% reported facing a ransomware attack in the past year.

However, only 9% of companies could return to business continuity or normal operations within one hour of discovering a cyberattack. Thus, 49% of IT and security leaders were concerned about data breaches (20%) or ransomware events (29%) as the top threat for the year ahead. In addition, approximately 24% of leaders surveyed said their IT and SecOps teams were either somewhat or not aligned when defending their companies.

Other key findings showed how companies are losing confidence in their ability to withstand attacks. 95% of respondents think they will be unable to maintain business continuity if they experience a cyberattack, while 23% believe their board of directors has little to no confidence in their organization’s ability to recover critical data and business applications after a cyberattack. 

A staggering 69% of survey respondents reported their organization is likely to consider paying a ransom following a cyberattack, and 8% of IT and security leaders said they had not adequately addressed vulnerabilities from previous cyber events.

Most of all, the weight of cybercrime is taking a toll, with 92% of respondents reporting experiencing significant emotional or psychological consequences following a cyberattack, ranging from worries over job security (44%) to loss of trust among colleagues (31%). On top of these, 39% of respondents reported leadership changes due to a cyberattack.

“Without a proactive and reliable approach to defend against modern cyber threats and strengthen confidence in an organization’s ability to resolve these cyber events, these impacts — both human and organizational — will continue to worsen and feed each other. The good news is we’re also seeing pragmatic, proven strategies in this same space paying off, and we can build off these approaches," said Steven Stone, head of Rubrik Zero Labs.

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