2020 has been a year filled with uncertainty. Many industries were either unprepared or not designed to move to a fully remote work environment with haste. Those on the cyber defense frontlines were faced with new challenges in multiple areas as an increase in cyberattacks coincided with the sudden shift to remote work. The progress made over the previous years towards a more mature security posture equipped many organizations with the skills and tools to meet these challenges head on. As a result, the number of reported breaches this year did not increase, despite the pandemic.
This paper outlines the results of the DomainTools’ fourth annual Cybersecurity Report Card Survey. More than 520 security professionals from companies ranging in size, industry, and geography were surveyed about their security posture and asked to grade the overall health of their programs. Almost 60 percent of respondents are on the cyber frontlines as security researchers, analysts or threat hunters. The responses built on the results of the previous 2017, 2018, and 2019 Report Cards. The environment that this year’s survey was conducted in differs markedly from previous years due to the upheaval that arose from the global pandemic.
Key findings from this survey include:
- The growing sophistication of organizations’ threat hunting capabilities
- Important trends in common attack vectors
- Common traits of grade “A” respondents
- Keys to success in 2021
