Survey suggests IT professionals too confident in cybersecurity capabilities

IT professionals may be overconfident in their abilities to quickly and efficiently detect a cyber attack in progress, according to results from a Tripwire survey.

While 73 percent of the 134 federal government respondents surveyed said they assumed their cybersecurity systems would be able to generate an alert within hours if a user accessed file shares without the appropriate clearance, in reality, 30 percent said they are not able to detect every user’s attempt to access files.

To further complicate matters, 48 percent of respondents said the vulnerabilities that are detected aren’t fixed within 30 days of the incident.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents also believed they would be able to identify new devices on their network within hours- but 52 percent also said they were unsure how long the detection process would take.

These discrepancies highlight vulnerabilities and represent “a significant gap” that allows attackers to hide within organizations, Tripwire Director of IT Security and Risk Strategy Tim Erlin was quoted as saying in an infographic released by the company.

Click here to see the full survey.