McAfee released Winning the Game, a new report investigating key challenges facing IT security organizations in terms of threats, technology investment and skills required to win the fight against cyberthreats. The survey revealed that concerted efforts to increase job satisfaction, automation in the Security Operations Center (SOC) and gamification in the workplace are key to beating cybercriminals at their own game.
The landscape for cyberthreats is growing, both in complexity and volume. According to the report, 46 % of respondents believe that in the next year they will either struggle to deal with the increase of cyberthreats or that it will be impossible to defend against them. Further complicating the dynamics of the competition between security responder and cybercriminal is the cybersecurity skills crisis. Survey respondents believe they need to increase their IT staff by nearly a quarter (24%) in order to manage the threats their organizations are currently facing, while 84 percent admit it is difficult to attract talent and 31 % say they do not actively do anything to attract new talent.
“With cybersecurity breaches being the norm for organizations, we have to create a workplace that empowers cybersecurity responders to do their best work,” said Grant Bourzikas, chief information security officer at McAfee. “Consider that nearly a quarter of respondents say that to do their job well, they need to increase their teams by a quarter, keeping our workforce engaged, educated and satisfied at work is critical to ensuring organizations do not increase complexity in the already high-stakes game against cybercrime.”