Cloud Usage Drives Cybersecurity Spending in SANS 2020 Survey

BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The rapid migration to cloud-based technologies is the biggest disrupter of operations and a key driver when organizations plan their spending increases, according to results of the SANS 2020 Cybersecurity Spending Survey to be released by SANS Institute in webcasts on January 29 and January 30, 2020.

"The SANS survey showed that rapid movement of corporate services and business applications to cloud-based technology is the biggest factor causing breakage in existing security architectures as well as driving most new security spending," says John Pescatore, SANS Director of Emerging Security Trends. "Cloud monitoring and cloud security access controls were the top two spending areas, followed by spending to increase security staff skills to deal with new technologies, such as the cloud, and to keep up with changes in regulations as well as new threats."

Slightly more than 50% of respondents ranked the increased use of public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) implementations as the biggest disrupter to security programs in the next 12 months. Based on that, 71% of respondents reported seeing a need to increase spending on cloud security monitoring, followed by cloud access security broker cloud-specific tools (53%), staff skills training (52%) and strong authentication (46%).

"Managers see increased and refreshed skills in their existing staff as being significantly more critical than simply increasing headcount," according to Barbara Filkins, SANS Analyst Program Research Director and author of the report. "The fact that respondents prioritize increasing staff skills significantly over increasing headcount to deal with 'disruptive technologies,' especially when faced with escalating privacy regulations—and fines—worldwide, is not surprising. Business use of IaaS and hybrid cloud requires re-architecting security controls and integrating with CI/CD methodologies."

In a series of follow-up interviews with selected survey respondents, security managers recognize the need for "upskilling" to increase retention rates, which improves both effectiveness and efficiency. Increased skills around new technologies and new security techniques is also required to enable any use of security automation technologies, which were not highly cited for spending increases in 2020.

Strong authentication, the fourth most highly cited area of planned new spending, points to the recognition that the majority of damage from breaches and ransomware attacks in the past year were enabled by the use of reusable passwords that were easily captured via phishing attacks. CEOs and boards of directors are backing security teams in overcoming obstacles to implementing multifactor authentication.

Full results will be shared during a January 29, 2020, webcast at 1 PM EST, sponsored by ExtraHop, Gigamon, and Netskope, and hosted by SANS. Register to attend the webcast at https://www.sans.org/webcasts/112015

Those who register for the webcast will also receive access to the published results paper developed by Barbara Filkins, with advice from John Pescatore, SANS Director of Emerging Security Trends.

Representatives of ExtraHop, Gigamon, and Netskope join Barbara Filkins and John Pescatore in a panel discussion on cybersecurity spends and trends in a January 30, 2020, webcast at 3:30 PM EST. Register to attend the webcast at https://www.sans.org/webcasts/112020

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SANS 2020 Cybersecurity Spending Survey Released | 1/29 at 1 PM ET | Register at https://www.sans.org/webcasts/112015

Join Barb Filkins of ‪@SANSInstitute, @john_pescatore, @ExtraHop, @gigamon, @Netskope as they discuss 2020 ‪#Cybersecurity spending trends | 1/30 at 3:30 PM ET | Register at https://www.sans.org/webcasts/112020

About SANS Institute
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cyber security training and certification to professionals at governments and commercial institutions world-wide. Renowned SANS instructors teach over 60 different courses at more than 200 live cyber security training events as well as online. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates a practitioner's qualifications via over 35 hands-on, technical certifications in cyber security. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master's degrees in cyber security. SANS offers a myriad of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system--the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to help the entire information security community. (https://www.sans.org)

SOURCE SANS Institute

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