Features Research
Citrix global IT security study confirms technology can’t handle today’s threats

The report found 98 per cent of business respondents reporting they will spend over a million dollars in 2017 for security. However, the study states, many of the systems and people in place are still not able to handle today’s threats.

The report, “The Need for a New IT Security Architecture: Global Study”, also found that less than half (48 per cent) of survey respondents said their organization has security policies in place to ensure employees and third parties only have the appropriate access to sensitive business information. Not helping is that nearly 70 per cent of business respondents said that some of their existing security solutions are outdated and inadequate.

“There are too many security technologies on the market today that add complexity. Security today is not about the number of security technologies your business invests in. It’s about investing in the right security technologies that will help protect applications and data, no matter where they’re used or stored,” said Stan Black, chief security officer, Citrix. “Businesses looking to get ahead of the cyber security threat landscape need to invest in solutions that have security built into them. When security is addressed from the start, we can protect more sensitive business information.”

Specific Canadian findings include:

• Most IT professionals in Canada (73%) feel strongly that some of their security solutions were outdated and inadequate. In fact, Canada is among the top four countries to agree that their organizations’ existing security solutions are outdated and inadequate.

• 71% of IT and IT security practitioners say their organization needs a new IT security framework to improve its security posture and reduce risk.

• More than any other country, Canadian IT practitioners think that machine learning is the most important technology to reduce security risk over the next two years (85%).

Globally, the top security concerns confirmed in the study were:

• Poor security deployments,
• Unapproved and rogue app deployments,
• Unmanaged data at risk,
• Talent pool is small.

Survey respondents also shared their ideas for solutions and improvements.

The report features insights from more than 4,200 IT and IT security practitioners in Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, China, Germany, France, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

Click here for more on the report.