Digital Transformation is Making DIY Security DOA

New research from eSentire finds over 75 percent of businesses are moving to the cloud, but most lack the resources to protect their sensitive data

WATERLOO, Ontario and SEATTLE, Nov. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- eSentire, Inc., the global leader in Managed Detection and Response (MDR), today unveiled a new research report conducted with 451 Research, that explores key business drivers and strategies that are redefining cybersecurity approaches and priorities in the age of digital transformation.

The report reveals that the majority of organizations are well down the road with digital transformation strategies and confirms the unanimous adoption of cloud services. Over three-quarters of businesses leverage a hybrid IT environment with production workloads traversing integrated on-premises and cloud services. This includes the storage and management of sensitive or regulated data in the public cloud.

It also exposes a unanimous confidence that businesses believe they are well positioned to protect their sensitive data, yet concede that the majority have experienced a significant security incident, cyberattack or data breach in the past 12 months. The report also investigates the growing gap in security expertise and personnel. While the security staffing shortage is well documented, what is less understood is how best to get the most out of finite resources within organizations. There is near unanimous agreement amongst respondents who believe they have enough security personnel to support their organization. Yet more than three-quarters of these firms report their teams lack specific expertise in critical areas of cybersecurity, including threat hunting, cloud security, security operations, automation and orchestration.

Aaron Sherill, Senior Analyst, 451 Research, said: "Organizations are rapidly adopting emerging and disruptive technologies, creating an increasingly complex infrastructure that is digital, edgeless and hybrid. The traditional perimeter is rapidly dissolving, and the enterprise is moving into a vast digital landscape that spans networks, clouds and geographies, which makes it difficult for security teams to map and gain visibility into the connected and converged environment that must be protected."

Mark Sangster, Vice President and Industry Security Strategist, eSentire said: "Businesses are struggling to gain efficiencies, improve agility to keep pace with emerging technologies and modern threats, and scale to enable business objectives and enhance customer experience. In an interconnected world of constant change, cybersecurity can no longer be an afterthought. Organizations embracing digital transformation need to decide whether they have the capabilities and capacity to manage these new cybersecurity challenges themselves, or if they should turn to a trusted third-party vendor for support and guidance."

Other key findings from the research include:

• Eighty-seven percent of organizations are increasing their security budgets by an average of 22 percent for 2020
• Fifty-seven percent of organizations are moving toward a hybrid IT environment that leverages both on-premises systems and off-premises cloud/hosted resources in an integrated fashion
• Nineteen percent of organizations are strategically moving to a completely off-premises, public cloud environment composed of a combination of Infrastructure-as-a Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
• Enabling the effects of digital transformation is the top IT spending priority over the next three to five years as organizations look to gain efficiencies, improve agility, flexibility and scalability, and enhance the customer experience

About the Report
The report is derived from a survey conducted by 451 Research and eSentire that targeted 400 companies, ranging from 250 to over 1,000 employees, to gain a better understanding of the current state of cybersecurity within these organizations. The research questioned CIOs, CTOs, CISOs and IT Directors about the current state of cybersecurity in their organizations, the security initiatives they have planned, the challenges they face, and, most importantly, how they are accommodating emerging technologies and digital transformation initiatives.

The full research report can be downloaded here.

About eSentire:
eSentire, Inc., the global leader in Managed Detection and Response (MDR), keeps organizations safe from constantly evolving cyber attacks that technology alone cannot prevent. Its 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC), staffed by elite security analysts, hunts, investigates, and responds in real-time to known and unknown threats before they become business disrupting events. Protecting more than $6 trillion AUM in the financial sector alone, eSentire absorbs the complexity of cybersecurity, delivering enterprise-grade protection and the ability to comply with growing regulatory requirements. For more information, visit www.esentire.com and follow @eSentire.

eSentire Media Contact:
Dan Deeth
eSentire Inc.
519.404.5425
[email protected]

SOURCE eSentire, Inc.

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