A new report today from big-data analytics company Splunk Inc. reveals that security leaders continue to see an increase in cyberattacks and unplanned outages.

According to the Splunk State of Security 2023 report, 52% of organizations say they have suffered a data breach in the past two years, an increase from 49% in 2022 and 39% in 2021. Some 62% of security leaders also said that their business-critical applications have suffered from unplanned downtime due to a cybersecurity incident on at least a monthly basis, an increase from 54% in 2022.

Key findings from the report include bad actors going unnoticed on corporate networks for extended periods of time. Disturbingly, respondents reported that, on average, more than two months go by from when a bad actor gains access to when businesses become aware of the intrusion.

Outages caused by cybersecurity incidents increased to about 22 per year, costing, on average, some 2.7% of annual revenue. According to a recent report from Splunk, downtime can cost organizations about $365,000 per hour. Nearly 40% of the respondents said cybersecurity incidents have directly harmed their competitive position and 31% said cybersecurity incidents have reduced shareholder value.

Although the headline figures are certainly not positive, it wasn’t all bad news, as many organizations are taking steps to address these challenges. Nearly all of the respondents say their security budgets will increase over the next two years, with 56% saying their budgets are growing “significantly.”

More than four-fifths of organizations say they are converging aspects of their security and information technology operations. According to the polled security leaders, 58% said that convergence would help with the overall visibility of risks in their environment and 55% said that they will see improved cooperation in threat identification and response processes.

Organizations are also focusing more on protecting their supply chain, with 95% of respondents saying they have increased their focus on third-party risk assessments. 91% of respondents agree that better capture and analysis of detection data is one of the most effective tools to prevent successful ransomware attacks.

“In the organizations we’ve worked with, resilience has been strongest with a collaborative approach in everything, from software development and infrastructure monitoring to business continuity planning,” Ryan Kovar, distinguished security strategist for Splunk, said ahead of the report’s release. “This approach brings everyone to the table, including security leaders with IT and business leaders, so they all can focus on protecting the organization.”

Image: Splunk