Zscaler: Is IT Leaders’ Trust in Cyber Resilience Falling?

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Zscaler's report indicates a decline in the confidence IT leaders have in cybersecurity and cyber resilience strategies (Credit: Zscaler)
Zscaler’s recent report indicates a large gap between IT leader’s belief in their cyber resilience and the actual ability of their strategies

Network security company, Zscaler, has released its ‘Unlock the Resilience Factor: Why Resilient by Design is the Next Cyber Security Imperative’ report, exploring the confidence IT leaders have in their cyber resilience. 

The report surveyed 1,700 IT decision-makers across 12 countries and emphasised the urgent need for IT leaders to reassess resilience strategies. 

Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman and Founder, Zscaler, explains: “The possibility of a major failure scenario for organisations is not an ‘if’ but ‘when’, as the statistics in our report show,” 

“It proves the need for proactive resilience to combat and mitigate inevitable incidents before they become a significant issue for business continuity. 

“But this change in approach requires a company-wide mindset shift that can only be enforced from the top down. Leadership needs to engage with their IT teams to create a cyber resilience strategy that is robust and fit for purpose in the face of today’s ever-more volatile threat and operating landscapes. 

“We call this becoming ‘Resilient by Design’.”

Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman and Founder, Zscaler

The challenges

Zscaler’s recent report has spotlighted a worrying broken relationship between the effectiveness of current security approaches and IT leader confidence in their organisation’s ability to handle evolving challenges.

Despite 49% of all respondents believing their IT infrastructure is highly resilient, only 45% of IT leaders believe their cyber resilience strategy is up to date in response to the growth of AI and two-fifths (40%) of IT leaders haven’t reviewed their cyber resilience strategy in more than six months.

In an increasingly digital world, cyber resilience strategies face several key challenges, including AI-powered cyber threats and ransomware, over-reliance on prevention over recovery and limited leadership and investment. 

Organisations that fail to effectively integrate cyber resilience into business continuity planning and operate in silos also increase their vulnerability to attacks. 

Key findings
  • 49% agreed the level of investment doesn't match the escalating need to review cyber resilience strategies
  • 44% of IT leaders have the CISO
  • 36% of IT leaders say their cyber resilience strategy is included in the overall resilience strategy
  • 94% of IT leaders understand how a strong cyber resilience strategy can help improve business performance

Security strategies become more complex to comply to with ever-changing cybersecurity regulations and a rising global cybersecurity talent shortage.

Despite the growth of AI and technological advancements posing a significant threat, there remains a lack of cyber resilience involvement, with 39% believing it to be one of the leaders’ top concerns.

What security tools can contain cyber-attacks?

Zscaler points to the lack of preparedness felt among organisations, with 60% of IT leaders believing their organisation focuses on prevention.

Splits also indicated that 43% of cybersecurity strategies fail to focus on recovery or response.

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Further weakness is highlighted in the fact that the majority of organisations that focus on prevention continue to fail to utilise proactive security tools that will reduce further damage, such as Zero Trus micro-segmentation (42%), risk hunting (44%) and deception technologies (35%). 

Organisations can contain the blast radius of cyber-attacks by utilising advanced tools and embracing a layered security approach that features deception technology, ransomware protection tools and DLP solutions to restrict attacker movements and ensure data security. 

Why are threats to cyber resilience strategies evolving?
  • Increasing sophistication of cyber criminals
  • Rapid adoption of emerging technologies
  • Geopolitical tensions
  • Advanced AI-powered attacks
  • Supply chain vulnerabilities geopolitical cyber-warfare

Organisations must integrate Zero Trust architecture, backup investment, continuous cyber resilience strategy updates and AI-powered security into a ‘Resilient by Design’ mindset to effectively address these challenges.

By doing so, they can limit access to critical systems, automate detection and response and ensure business continuity post-attack.

As organisations continue to handle these dynamic threats, they can embrace cross-functional collaboration, leadership engagement and proactive security investments to secure long-term resilience.

James Tucker, Head of EMEA CISOs in Residence at Zscaler, states: “A cyber resilience strategy is not just a means to weather the dangers of a digital future, but also an enabler of greater innovation and improvement of your organisation without fear of consequences,”

James Tucker, Head of EMEA CISOs in Residence at Zscaler

“If both the business and employees build a ‘Resilient by Design’ mindset, then organisations set themselves up to push the boundaries of what they can do and better adapt to any adverse situations that arise.

"With the growing threat landscape including AI-based attacks and continued pressure to digitize not likely to abate any time soon, our attack surfaces are still expanding beyond our control. A robust and proactive resilience strategy, underpinned by a zero trust architecture, ensures a foundation that won’t crumble.”


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