Cybersecurity Readiness Confidence Declined In 2016

The confidence of security practitioners in global cybersecurity readiness fell slightly in 2016, according to a new report out today by CyberEdge Group and Tenable. The 2017 Global Cybersecurity Assurance Report Card took a temperature-check from 700 security professionals about a number of key indicators to come up with a global index score to reflect their ability to assess cyber risks and their ability to mitigate threats. The study showed that the index fell six points in the last year to an overall "C-" score of 70%. A big part of that drop came on the back of a 12-point decline in risk assessment capabilities. As a part of the assurance report, security practitioners were asked about their risk assessment capabilities in 11 key areas, including cloud environments, endpoints, and Web servers. Most areas achieved no better than mediocre scores, with the worst performances in emerging categories like containerization and DevOps environments, which received failing grades.