A lack of management support, scattershot planning, and a shortage of available talent are all plaguing cybersecurity departments, according to research from Fastly.The cloud platform provider found that 87% of security professionals believe that spending on cybersecurity should increase over the coming year, but were skeptical that funding will go where needed.“The need for more cybersecurity and digital resilience is greater than ever — yet 2024 finds security programs in a precarious position,” the company said in its annual research report.“The headwinds facing cybersecurity initiatives are more significant now than they were last year.”According to the report, in many cases security teams find themselves facing an uphill battle in trying to convince management that their proposed initiatives aimed at hardening network and data protection are not being prioritized by management.“Security teams face an uphill struggle as they try to convince senior executives to part with that budget,” the Fastly researchers explained.“That’s because the C-suite has plenty of other priorities to address, especially in areas such as digital transformation and IT modernization. They feel that cybersecurity initiatives slow these down.”If the shortage of security funding is not an issue for organizations, there is a good chance that a shortage of manpower will be. Among the most commonly cited issues in the report is not having enough qualified talent.As a result, some respondents feel that their security operations are becoming inefficient and are unable to make full use of their resources.“Traditionally, companies have invested in more talent to try and keep up with burgeoning cybersecurity needs, but this year sees a deep dissatisfaction with the available talent pool,” the report noted.Finally, there is the issue of complexity. Fastly argued that in many cases there is confusion as to the direction organizations should take and what platforms should form the foundations of their security setup.“The technology organizations use to fight cyber threats are also an issue as companies look to scale their cybersecurity initiatives,” report said.“Businesses are also still laboring under complex, overlapping toolsets that make cybersecurity operations such as incident response more difficult.”The researchers conclude that in order to solve these issues, organizations need to consolidate their strategies and centralize their security plan around a small set of pre-determined initiatives and objectives.“If there’s one takeaway from our 2024 survey it’s this: Businesses face tensions between rising cyber threats and constraints on cybersecurity investment.”
