Cisco’s study reveals that only 1% of organizations in the Philippines are prepared for cyber attacks (or at the “Mature” level of readiness), despite the heightened awareness of cybersecurity. This figure falls below the 3% global average recorded.
However, the 2024 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index also indicates that 78% of companies feel “moderately” to “very confident” in their ability to defend against cyberattacks with their current infrastructure.
The technology giant pointed out that this disparity between confidence and readiness suggests that companies may have misplaced confidence in their ability to navigate the threat landscape and may not be properly assessing the true scale of the challenges they face.
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“The threat landscape today is more complicated than ever and organizations globally including those in the Philippines continue to lag in their cyber resilience,” said Zaza Soriano-Nicart, managing director, Cisco Philippines.
Cybersecurity incidents
The Cisco Index classified company readiness into four stages: Beginner, Formative, Progressive, and Mature. The results of the index were derived from the 8,000 private sector security and business leaders across 30 global markets who participated in the survey.
The Index indicates that 64% of organizations in the Philippines fall into the Beginner or Formative stages of readiness.
This low readiness can be attributed to the complexity of their cybersecurity infrastructure and the misplaced confidence that as long as there is a solution in place, the company is safe from threats.
According to Cisco, readiness is critical as 67% of respondents said a cybersecurity incident is likely to disrupt their business in the next 12-24 months.
“Companies need to adopt a platform approach that will provide a simple, secure, single pane of glass view into their entire architecture to strengthen their security posture and best take advantage of the opportunities that come with emerging technologies,” Nicart said.
Companies today continue to be targeted with a variety of techniques that range from phishing and ransomware to supply chain and social engineering attacks. Cisco recommends companies accelerate meaningful investments in security, including the adoption of innovative security measures and a security platform approach, strengthen their network resilience, establish meaningful use of generative AI, and ramp up recruitment to bridge the cybersecurity skills gap.