The 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity report highlights that a significant portion of IT and business professionals in the U.S. feel only partially satisfied with their organizations' security postures. Key issues driving a reevaluation of security measures include compliance, the threat of cyberattacks, and the need for diverse skills. Organizations are considering strategies such as training current employees, hiring specialists, and enhancing third-party collaborations to improve security capabilities.

1. 2018 TRENDS IN CYBERSECURITY
BUILDING EFFECTIVE SECURITY TEAMS
September 2018
The complete 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity research report can be viewed free of charge at CompTIA.org (with simple registration)
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2. Satisfaction with current security posture
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.
27%
61%
12%
20%
67%
13%
Large Mid-sized Small
Completely
satisfactory
Adequate/
unsatisfactory
Mostly
satisfactory
14%
64%
22%

3. Major issues driving IT security
31%
35%
38%
44%
47%
51%
51%
57%
Compliance with regulations
Quantifying impact of security to business
Breadth of skills needed to address security issues
Increased reliance on data
Overall threat of attacks to business
Privacy concerns
Variety of attacks
Growing number of hackers/cybercriminals
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.

4. Drivers for changing approach to IT security
11%
18%
19%
20%
24%
25%
26%
36%
48%
No recent change to security approach
Focus on a new industry vertical
Change in management
Change in business operations or client base
Vulnerability discovered by an outside party
Action taken after training or certification
Internal security breach or incident
Reports of security breaches at other organizations
Change in IT operations
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.

5. Location of security center of operations
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.
36%
26%
20%
8%
6%
Part of internal infrastructure team Internal team reporting to CIO
Internal team outside IT
Third-party
security firm Not enough security focus
for dedicated center
4%
Third-party IT firm

6. Demographics of third party security partners
37%
50%
13%
Number of security partners
4 or
more
19%
39%
43%
1-2 years
3-4 years
More than
5 years
2-3
1
Number of years working with
third party security lead
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 314 IT and business professionals in the U.S. working with third party security firms
n = 54 IT and business professionals in the U.S. working with third party security firms as center of security operations

7. Prerequisite knowledge needed for IT security
57%
62%
66%
66%
69%
71%
Basic knowledge of cloud architecture
Awareness of laws/regulations
Basic knowledge of endpoint devices
Understanding of internal
workflow/processes
Basic knowledge of networking
Basic knowledge of server
administration
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.

8. Improvement needed across broad set of skills
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.
51%
58%
58%
64%
61%
61%
56%
59%
65%
63%
59%
63%
28%
30%
31%
25%
28%
28%
33%
31%
25%
27%
32%
28%
Cryptography
Penetration testing
Risk management
Network/infrastructure security
Application/data/host security
Security analytics
Educational ability
Incident detection and response
Access control/identity management
Compliance/operational security
Knowledge of threats/vulnerabilities
Vulnerability assessment
Moderate improvement needed Significant improvement needed

9. Options being considered for improving security skills
57%
53%
44%
41%
37%
Train current
employees
Hire security-
specific skills
Expand use of
third parties
Certify current
employees
Explore use of
third parties
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.

10. 67%
27%
6%
Formal policies
and procedures
Unwritten rules
that are typically
followed
Incident Response Plans Common but Not Necessarily
Effective
No policies or
procedures
33%
60%
7%
Highly
effective
Moderately
effectiveSlightly
effective/Not
effective
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 402 IT and business professionals in the U.S.
n = 376 IT and business professionals in the U.S. with formal or informal incident response plans

11. Wide Variety of Metrics In Use
18%
20%
25%
31%
31%
36%
38%
40%
40%
43%
45%
Number of third-party agreements with security language
Formal return on investment calculation
Informal return on investment process
Percentage of software going through code review
Number of flaws found by third party audit
Number of violations of corporate policy
Percent of network traffic flagged as anomalous
Percentage of employees taking security training
Percent of systems with formal risk assessment
Number of systems patched recently
Number of successful compliance audits
Source: CompTIA’s 2018 Trends in Cybersecurity study | n = 366 IT and business professionals in the U.S. using security metrics