2023 Cybersecurity Assessment Report Highlights Top Global Security Challenges for Organizations

Across the world, companies and organizations of all sizes are under tremendous pressure to contend with evolving threats such as ransomware, zero-day vulnerabilities and espionage. At the same time, they are also struggling with the complexities involved in extending security coverage across environments and an ongoing skills shortage. With more workers working from home, security threats are spreading over a larger risk pool.

Cybersecurity company Bitdefender released its 2023 Cybersecurity Assessment Report, which is based on an independent survey and analysis of IT and security managers revealing top security concerns, practices and key challenges businesses are facing across their environments. The study found that more than half of businesses (52 percent) surveyed suffered a breach in the last 12 months.

The U.S. led at 75 percent (which is 23 percent higher than average) followed by the U.K. at 51.4 percent and Germany at 48.5 percent, rounding out the top three. At the same time, more than two in five (42 percent) of the total IT/security professionals surveyed said they have been told to keep a breach confidential when they knew it should be reported and 30 percent said they have kept a breach confidential.

Given the prevalence of data breaches and the overwhelming pressure to keep them quiet, IT/security professionals face a grim situation, according to the report’s authors. Over half (55 percent) of respondents agree they are worried about their company facing legal action due to a breach being handled incorrectly.  

When asked about the security threats that pose the greatest concern, respondents indicated they are most concerned about software vulnerabilities and/or zero-days threats (53 percent), closely followed by phishing/social engineering threats (52 percent) and attacks targeting the supply chain coming in at third (49 percent). The top concern correlates with Bitdefender Labs research which has shown a marked increase in 2023 of cybercriminals exploiting known software vulnerabilities using proof of concept (PoC) attacks.

“The results of this survey demonstrate, more than ever, the importance of layered security that delivers advanced threat prevention, detection and response across the entire business while improving efficiencies that allow security teams to do more with less,” said Andrei Florescu, deputy general manager and senior vice president of products at Bitdefender Business Solutions Group.