Whether you are just beginning to build an in-house intelligence program or are maturing your program, you have likely encountered some headwinds. You are not alone. Speaking with security leaders - including those helming the largest, most mature intelligence programs - we found that there were five challenges that were most common.
Intelligence analysis requires hard-to-hire skills that fall outside the scope of traditional cybersecurity or corporate security. Finding the right expertise at the right salary is difficult, and keeping them on board is even more challenging. Worse still, 54% of security teams are already reaching burnout.1
Fighting for the budget to get the tools, team, and training you need can feel like a never-ending cycle, and there never seems to be enough to invest in everything required. And it can be difficult to quantify the ROI of threat intelligence given that a key element of success is incidents and associated potential costs that never happen.
If your team feels deluged with data from inside and outside your organization, they are not alone. 84% of CISOs admit they are completely overwhelmed by their threat intelligence data.1
From your growing security stack generating a constant stream of alerts to the exponential expansion of information sources within the digital realm alone, it’s often difficult for intelligence teams to quickly determine what threats really matter. Full threat visibility is important, but with it comes a lot of data and information. Cutting through the noise is critical to protecting your organization from threats.
Security has a higher profile within the strategic and day-to-day business operations, and executive leadership is more in-tune with security issues than ever. 30% of security leaders now meet with the board of directors at least once a week.2 Maintaining a positive relationship with these stakeholders requires anticipating their concerns and having answers when they ask questions. And they always ask questions!
The threat landscape is constantly changing and threat actors and threat actor groups are becoming increasingly sophisticated. From ransomware and phishing, insider threats, and harassment of your executives, keeping pace with your rapidly evolving threat picture can feel like a marathon with no end in sight.
Digital transformation has changed our world, and bolstering your defenses is no longer enough to prevent an incident. Corporate security teams need digital and cyber expertise to prevent physical threats. And cybersecurity teams need visibility into the cyber hygiene of 3rd-party vendors to understand the full picture of their risk.
As you build your security strategy, an enterprise intelligence program can be critical to your business's continuity and continued growth. From incident monitoring to data-driven decision-making, the right intel can help you avoid cyber threats, aid due diligence, protect your people, and inform corporate strategy.
While intelligence teams are nearly ubiquitous among the Fortune 500s, only the most elite teams have successfully integrated disparate intelligence functions to drive enterprise strategy. Working with a trusted managed intelligence provider can help you overcome common challenges and accelerate your intelligence evolution.
1 Vanson Bourne 2022
2 https://www.ciisec.org