Study Points to Lax Focus on Cybersecurity

Organizations obviously are aware of the need to address security and privacy needs, but many seem to be only moderately ready on this front. That is one of the takeaways from the Society for Information Management’s (SIM) recently released IT Issues and Trends Study for 2019. The results show what organizations and IT managers are concerned about, where they focus their attention, and some of the disparity in their interests.

The report gathered responses from 1,033 IT executives who hail from 618 organizations. On the surface, the results show unilateral concern for keeping data and infrastructure secure. A deeper look at the charts and tables shows, among other trends, some lethargy, according to Leon Kappelman, lead author of the report and professor of information systems at University of North Texas.

In a way, the report shows that organizations might be aware of a need but do not always act immediately. Historical results from the annual study show an evolution in focus among organizations. Cybersecurity moved from No. 9 in 2009 among organizations' top ten most important IT management issues to No. 1 as of 2017 onward. Yet, the increased concern about security does not lead automatically to sweeping changes.

Read the full article here on InformationWeek.