Undetected breaches are rising 20% year over year, according to a disturbing new report from deep monitoring firm Gigamon.
The cloud is a prime suspect in the statistics, according to the company's 2024 Hybrid Cloud Security Survey, with organizations around the world finding publishing their data a bottleneck in the ability to effectively detect and respond to cyber threats.
The annual survey, which surveyed more than 1,000 security and IT leaders in six countries, shows a year-over-year decline in detection and response capabilities compared to the 2023 Gigamon report.
One in three organizations were found to be unable to detect breaches in the past 12 months, and only 25% are able to respond in real time.
This highlights the growing challenge of maintaining strong cybersecurity measures in an increasingly complex digital landscape.
Invisible cyber attacks
As data is scattered across on-premises, public, and private cloud platforms, the complexities of networking have made maintaining end-to-end visibility and control increasingly difficult.
83% of respondents believe cloud complexity increases their cyber risk. These sentiments are exacerbated by the imminent threat of AI-powered cyberattacks, with 82% of respondents anticipating an increase in global ransomware threats.
Only 40% of respondents reported that they have east-to-west (lateral) traffic visibility, which is down from 48% in 2023, although three-quarters of respondents agree that east-to-west (lateral) visibility is more important for cloud security than North and South. .
While monitoring north-south traffic is still important for perimeter security, the nature of modern data centers and cloud environments has shifted the focus toward having a comprehensive view of east-west traffic flows. However, 76% of respondents currently trust that encrypted traffic is secure.
Haim Mazal, CIO at Gigamon, underscored the seriousness of the situation, saying: “It is clear to IT heads that the enterprise toolkit is inadequate.”
Organizations are realizing the increased threat level that this increase in attack surfaces, data dissemination, and increased AI attacks will bring, and information security spending is expected to reach $215 billion in 2024.
However, the survey showed that 65% of respondents believe their current security tools cannot effectively detect breaches.
