High performance security report

Perception vs. reality

Organizations are confident in their ability to protect themselves, yet breach rates are alarmingly high.

We recently surveyed 2,000 security executives at large, global enterprises and found that about one in three focused, targeted breach attempts succeeded. Still, 75 percent of respondents were “confident” they were doing the right things with their security strategies, and a similar number said security is “completely embedded” in their cultures, with support from the highest-level executives.

Clearly, there’s a disconnect.

Surviving in this increasingly risky environment requires a cybersecurity “re-boot” to embrace an end-to-end approach that recognizes a spectrum of threats, minimizes exposure and identifies high-priority assets. This takes a few fundamental steps.

Invest to innovate & outmaneuver

We recommend a hard look at seven key cybersecurity domains to identify potential opportunities where your money can be most effectively spent.

1. Business alignment – Assess security incident scenarios to better understand those that could materially affect the business and identify drivers of and barriers to remediation and transformation strategies.
2. Strategic threat context – By anticipating future threats, gain insight on competitive and geopolitical risks and other areas to align security programs with business strategy.
3. The extended ecosystem – Be ready to cooperate during crisis management, develop third-party cybersecurity clauses and agreements and focus on regulatory compliance.
4. Governance and leadership – Focus on security accountability, nurture a security-minded culture and create a clear-cut chain of command.
5. Cyber resilience – Understand the threat landscape, design key asset protection approaches and use “design for resilience” techniques to limit a cyber attack’s impact.
6. Cyber response readiness – Have a robust response plan, strong cyber incident communications and the ability to ensure stakeholder involvement across all functions.
7. Investment efficiency – Drive financial understanding concerning investments across security domains and the allocation of funding and other resources.

About the research

Accenture Security sought to get an inside view into how companies deal with cyber threats.

Objective: Understand how comprehensive company security plans are, how resilient companies are and how much they spend on security.

Surveyed: 2,000 Security and IT executives, director level and above, at companies with revenues of US$1 billion or more, from 12 industries in 15 countries. Countries and industries as follows:

View the Accenture high performance security research by geography

United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, Brazil, France, Japan and United Arab Emirates.

View the Accenture high performance security research by industry

Communications, Banking, Capital Markets, Energy (Oil & Gas), Healthcare (provider & payer), High Technology, Life Sciences, Products, Industrial Equipment, Retail, Utilities, Insurance