Over 70% Organisations Expect Disruptive Cybersecurity Incident Within Next Year: Survey

There is a disconnect between perceived and actual cyber readiness among global enterprises. Despite 94% of organisations feeling prepared to mitigate cyberattacks, 71% believe they are likely to experience a disruptive incident within the next year that will impact their financial performance, a survey by Kyndryl, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, has found.

This disconnect highlights the need for improved awareness and enhanced measures to handle sophisticated cyber threats.

Other key findings from the survey of more than 600 large enterprises highlight the challenges of the cyber threat landscape:

Evolving Threat Landscape: Over half (52%) of IT leaders are struggling with operational challenges like preparing for emerging threats such as nation-state and generative artificial intelligence attacks. Securing hybrid cloud environments (47%) and managing the complexity of operating multiple security solutions (42%) were also top concerns. 

High Frequency Of Attacks: Over the last year, 54% of large organisations reported experiencing a cyberattack that disrupted IT systems or data. Of those, 61% faced four or more attacks, with Germany (71%), Canada (60%) and India (56%) as the top three most affected countries. 

Inadequate Executive Support: A significant 69% of respondents reported a lack of support from business leaders for necessary security measures. Even greater, 73% indicated board-level disinterest in security readiness.

Lack Of Alignment In Regulatory Preparedness: Despite 94% confidence in handling changing regulatory dynamics as regulatory pressures increase to improve overall cyber resilience, 77% struggle with security and other risk-mitigating team alignment, and 72% lack clear business continuity roadmaps.  

Organisational Constraints: Over half (54%) of organisations noted that remote work continues to strain their security teams, while cybersecurity budget restrictions (43%) and security skills shortages (43%) were also top challenges.

Industry-Specific Challenges: Retail (61%), manufacturing (57%) and chemicals, oil and gas (56%) sectors reported the highest incidence of cyberattacks. Government organisations experienced the highest frequency, with 74% reporting four or more attacks.