SafeGuard Cyber released findings from a survey of 100 IT security leaders about their digital risk processes and safeguarding digital communications. The survey findings indicate that cybersecurity leaders understand what is needed for successful digital risk protection, but they are still dealing with limitations and vulnerabilities in protecting these communications, including engagement on third-party cloud applications.

Conducted in coordination with the research community Pulse in June 2021, the survey sought to uncover how cybersecurity leaders are managing digital risks on third-party applications, who owns the responsibility for securing them, and what can be done to improve their organization’s security posture for cloud applications. Survey participants included 100 senior enterprise IT and security professionals at companies with over 5,000 employees. 

Key findings include:

• Lack of visibility (39%) is the biggest challenge for security leaders who aim to maintain security and compliance across all business communications.
• When it comes to digital communication risks, security leaders are most concerned about data loss (46%), followed by malware and ransomware attacks (37%). 
• Only 10% of cybersecurity leaders have a tech stack that provides full visibility for detecting and responding to threats in cloud applications outside of their network.
• Security leaders often restrict access as a means of managing risk where they lack granular visibility. To ensure security and compliance on social media, collaboration, and mobile chat applications, most security leaders (77%) turn to tools that restrict access to third-party communication apps.

When asked how they rate their organization’s digital risk mitigation capabilities, more than three-quarters of cybersecurity leaders (78%) reported they have limitations and vulnerabilities that prevent them from protecting all communication channels and digital assets. Currently, their greatest challenge is the lack of message-level visibility on third-party cloud applications, which is at the heart of the recent Electronic Arts Slack hacking. 

“Collaboration applications have become essential for business teams to communicate, but present a great deal of risk, as we are learning from the fallout of this EA Games attack,” said Jim Zuffoletti, CEO and co-founder, SafeGuard Cyber. “Our latest findings confirm that digital risk protection needs to be driven from a central command hub where an enterpriseʼs entire digital footprint can be seen and proactively managed.”

To see the full survey results, please visit the SafeGuard Cyber website.