The 2016 Scalar Security Study revealed that only 37% of Canadian organizations feel they are winning the cyber security battle, with an average of 40 cyber attacks occurring annually. High performing organizations, which report better security postures, invest significantly in monitoring tools, align their cyber security strategies with overall business goals, and allocate more budget to security initiatives. The study emphasizes the importance of network visibility and enterprise-wide adoption of security strategies to mitigate risks.

1. The Cyber Security
Readiness of Canadian
Organizations
results of the 2016
scalar security study

2. We surveyed over 650 IT and IT security
practitioners with various roles and
responsibilities from a wide range of
industries, with almost two thirds working
in organizations with between 251 and
5,000 employees in Canada.

3. What you need to know about the cyber
security landscape in Canada today.

4. Only
37%of organizations believe
they are winning the
cyber security war

5. Organizations in Canada
experience an average of
40cyber attacks per year

6. Mobile devices and applications are
considered the greatest IT security risk.

7. On average,
respondents estimated that
cyber security compromise
cost their organization
$7MILLIONin the last 12 months

8. While it appears that the overall threat
landscape has become more severe in the
last 12 months, there is some good news.

9. We identified certain organizations
represented in this study that self-report
to have achieved a more effective cyber
security posture and are better able to
mitigate risks, vulnerabilities, and attacks.

10. We refer to these as “high performing”
organizations, and they represent
of those surveyed.

11. High performing organizations
do things differently that have
yielded some positive results…

12. They are
more likely to believe they are winning
the cyber security war.

13. They are
LESS likely to have experienced an incident in
the past 12 months that led to the loss or exposure
of sensitive information.

14. They are heavily investing in monitoring
and visibility tools including network
traffic surveillance and SIEM.

15. They are almost
TWICEas likely as low performers to have a cyber
security strategy that is fully aligned to the
business goals and mission.

16. They dedicate
MORE of their IT budget to
information security.

17. So, what can you learn from
high performing organizations?

18. INVESTin the visibility of your network in
order to detect more attacks and
suffer less successful breaches.

19. ENSUREenterprise-wide adoption of a cyber
security strategy and align it with the
overall mission of the organization.

20. ALLOCATEa greater portion of your IT budget to
security-specific initiatives.

21. Download the complete study
at scalar.ca/security-study-2016