Security operation platform threat indexhas released the 2023 Cyber Security Automation Implementation Status Survey Report.
This report draws insights from a survey of 750 senior cybersecurity professionals across the UK, US and Australia, highlighting the evolving landscape of cybersecurity automation in today’s enterprises.
Key findings from the study highlight the growing importance of automation in cybersecurity, with 75% of respondents expressing the importance of automation, up from 68% a year ago. Increased has.
The report also reveals significant increases in automation in key areas, particularly alert triage (up 30% from 18% in 2022) and vulnerability management (up 5%). Phishing analysis has emerged as the most common use case for automation, adopted by 31% of respondents in 2023.
However, the report also highlights the challenges faced by organizations implementing cybersecurity automation. The top three issues identified by survey participants include lack of confidence in results, slow user adoption, and bad decisions such as accidentally blocking benign domain names or benign emails.
Interestingly, this study signals a shift in the way cybersecurity professionals measure return on investment (ROI) for automation projects. Employee satisfaction and retention are key metrics for over 60% of leaders, outpacing traditional metrics such as security performance. This shift highlights the need for automation to improve the overall employee experience by streamlining tasks and freeing cybersecurity teams to focus on more engaging and meaningful work.
Despite recognizing the importance of cybersecurity automation, respondents reported encountering problems, and all but one expressed dissatisfaction. The report suggests that these challenges may be due to early adoption of solutions that did not reach their potential and lacked integration capabilities.
said Leon Ward, Vice President of Product Management at ThreatQuotient. “While there are proven use cases for automation, we believe the main barriers encountered are due to early adoption of solutions that did not reach their potential and lacked integration” capabilities. ”
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When it comes to budget allocation for automation projects, the report reveals a shift, with only 18.5% allocating new budget this year, down from 34% a year ago. Additionally, 57% are reallocating budget from outside their team, and 46% are increasing their budget by reallocating budget from other tools.
When organizations consider cybersecurity automation solutions, their wish list includes integration with multiple data sources (24%), availability of training (23%), and automated reporting (21%).
Ward emphasizes, “ROI is measured based on team satisfaction and retention, so vendors must incorporate the human benefits of their solutions into their product design and messaging.”