71% of CIO’s regularly blindsided by unknown devices

CIO’s are regularly ambushed by endpoints they are not aware of, according to new research, with 71 percent of CIOs finding computing devices they weren’t aware of on a daily or weekly basis.

An astonishing 93 percent of IT decision-makers discovered endpoints within their IT environment that they were previously unaware of, in spite of spending millions on data protection alone. Indeed, UK firms have spent an average £51 million on compliance and increased their cyber- liability insurance by an average of £112.9 million each in the last 12 months. 

Despite of this significant investment in compliance and risk management, more than nine in 10 (93 percent) of UK businesses have fundamental weaknesses in their IT estate that are leaving them vulnerable, according to the research by Tanium. The research also found that UK businesses are operating highly complex security environments, with an average of 41 separate security and operations tools implemented, a challenge further exacerbated in 35 percent of cases by legacy systems that do not provide accurate information.

Chris Hodson, chief information security officer at Tanium told SC Media UK that blind investment is not the key to success: "Despite huge investment, IT organisations still struggle daily with how best to manage and secure the enterprise environment. Technology leaders must regain control of their IT environment to minimise risk. They should do this not by purchasing more tools, but by focusing on fundamentals. This focus must start at the endpoint: the primary attack vector and failure point."

According to the research, IT leaders are deeply concerned about endpoint visibility, with 57 percent concerned that limited visibility of endpoints will leave their company more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and 36 percent admitting that the limited visibility is the biggest compliance barrier they face. Meanwhile, 42 percent believe a lack of endpoint visibility will cause brand damage, and also could lead to non-compliance fines (34 percent). Interestingly, despite of this, 94 percent of respondents’ were confident their business could report all necessary breach information to regulators within 72 hours of a real world data breach - a confidence that was undermined by the rest of the survey responses. 

The Tanium study spoke to 750 Global IT decision-makers, including 100 respondents from the UK, as well as respondents from the United States, Australia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, and Canada.