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It continues to be challenging being a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) today – and 2018 promises no rest. As high-profile data breaches escalate, CISOs, CIOs, and other information security professionals believe their organizations are more likely than ever to fall victim to a data breach or cyber attack. What’s more, they’re most worried about something simple, and it’s not even technology. The top concern among CISOs for 2018 was “lack of competent in-house staff”.   
 
Larry Ponemon, author of the report, says he was also surprised by the finding, adding that typically data breaches, ineffective security tools, or some other technical aspect of guarding security tops the concerns list. “Workforce issues are usually somewhere in the middle,” he says. According to the survey of 612 CIOs and IT security pros, the top five threats that worry them the most in 2018 are:

  • 70%:  lack of competent in-house staff
  • 67%:  data breach
  • 59%:  cyber attack
  • 54%:  inability to reduce employee negligence
  • 48%:  ransomware

The majority of respondents expect breaches and attacks to stem from inadequate in-house expertise (65%); inability to guard sensitive and confidential data from unauthorized access (59%); an inability to keep pace with sophisticated attackers (56%); and a failure to control third parties’ use of company’s sensitive data (51%), according to the survey.
 

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