Almost all IT and security leaders (96%) globally are concerned their organisation will be unable to maintain business continuity following a cyberattack, according to a new study released  by Rubrik.

Rubrik Zero Labs commissioned its second global study with Wakefield Research to gather insights from more than 1,600 IT and security leaders- half of which were CIOs and CISOs- across 10 countries. Supplemented by Rubrik telemetry, key findings of the report include:

Everyone is “Doing” Data Security, But Reality & Results Vary:

• Data security is becoming increasingly complex and the datasets that require securing are growing rapidly. Rubrik internal data revealed that on average, the growth of data secured in 2022 was 25% (on premises grew 19%, cloud grew 61%, and SaaS data secured grew 236% last year).
• More than half (56%) of organisations currently employ at least one zero trust initiative.
• However, only 56% of IT and security leaders developed or reviewed an incident response plan in 2022, and 54% tested backup and recovery options.

Legacy Data Backups, the Last Line of Defence for Many, are Falling Short:

• 99% of external organisations reported having backup and recovery technology, with 93% encountering significant issues with their solution.
• Nine out of ten external organisations reported malicious actors attempted to impact data backups during a cyberattack, and 73% were at least partially successful in these attempts.
• Nearly three quarters (72%) of organisations reported paying a ransomware demand.
• Only 16% of all global organizations recovered all of their data via attacker decryption tools.

New and Constantly Evolving Problems Are Met with the Existing Challenges Pre-dating an Intrusion:

• Almost half (47%) of IT and security leaders believe their 2023 cybersecurity budget is not enough of an investment.
• 27% expect their IT and cybersecurity budgets to decrease in 2023.
• IT and security leaders will need to work at bringing their teams together with only 4% stating there are no factors limiting the IT and security alignment requiring their attention this year.

“It’s clear organisations understand the gravity and impact of cyber incidents, but we also see a range of roadblocks from a lack of preparation, misalignment between IT and security teams, and over-reliance on insufficient backup and recovery solutions,” said Steven Stone, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs.

“In the current era of cybersecurity, the best outcome is ensuring cyber resilience. Incidents are inevitable, so it’s critical to reduce the risk before a response is needed, and—at all costs—protect the crown jewel: the data.” 

Download the full report HERE

Methodology: The research was conducted among 1,625 IT and Security decision makers at companies of 500 or more employees by Wakefield Research in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and India between February 10th and February 21st, 2023. Respondents were made up of approximately half CIOs and CISOs and half VPs and Directors of IT and Security.