Cyberattacks Are Heavily Increasing in North America

Jun 9, 2021 19:39 GMT  ·  By

According to the Global Security Insights Report by VMware, most Canadian businesses were affected by cyberattacks in 2020 due to more employees working from home. As a result, many security leaders are looking for ways to improve their cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

Some of the most notable findings from the VMware report are:

- In 2020, 86% of Canadian security managers confirmed a breach, with 88% of breaches classified as material.  - According to 78% of respondents, the volume of attacks has increased and cyberattacks have become more sophisticated.  - 56% are concerned about a material breach in 2021.

According to the report, CISOs' biggest security concerns were applications and workloads. In addition, the report found that vulnerabilities in the operating system (19.5%) were the most common cause of data breaches, followed by third-party apps (16%).

As the report notes, growing attack surfaces are forcing Canadian security leaders to rethink their cybersecurity investments and ensure their organizations can protect remote workers from cyberattacks.

Canadian security leaders are rethinking their cybersecurity approach 

- 58% percent of Canadian security executives said they need to look at security differently than before because attack surfaces have increased.  - 58% said they need better visibility into data and applications to stop attacks.  - 34% are building more security into their infrastructure and applications and reducing point solutions.  - 31.5% have updated their security policies and approaches to mitigate risk.  - 29.5% have updated their security technology to mitigate risk.

What about cloud-first security strategy? 

The vast majority of respondents (95%) indicated that they intend to move to a cloud-first security policy, if not immediately, then at some point in the future.

Overall, 25% have been using a cloud-first approach for more than a year, while 39% have been using cloud-first for less than a year. Another 31% intend to become cloud-first in the coming year or will do so in the future. Government organizations show a high level of cloud maturity, with 27.5% having been cloud-first for more than a year. 57% of financial services organizations have been cloud-first for less than a year.