When it comes to cybersecurity, the mood among IT managers in upper German medium-sized companies is cautiously optimistic. 69 percent plan to spend more money on IT security. 98 percent are confident they have tools, strategies and money for IT security.
The 2023 Cybersecurity Assessment Report presented by Bitdefender not only paints a global picture of the cybersecurity situation. The survey of 400 IT and cybersecurity experts from IT manager to CISO in companies with 1.000 or more employees in the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain shows: Even in a European comparison, the decision-makers in Germany see themselves in IT security issues not too weak. In Germany, the respondents even have the highest level of trust in their own IT defence.
Most important study results from a German perspective
🔎 There are different levels of confidence in one's own IT security setup (Image: Bitdefender).
Planned increase in investments in IT security
Only 5,9% of the participants from Germany state that economic uncertainty has not affected their security budget. The intention to put more money into cyber defense is obvious for Germany: 69,1% of companies plan to increase their investment volume. This puts you in last place, albeit at a high level, behind Spain (69,7%), Great Britain (70%), Italy (72,1%), the USA with 78,7% and France with 83,6%.
However, almost a third of companies who want to reduce their expenses are facing an increasing willingness to invest. In Germany, 29,4% plan to reduce the budget for new staff, in France only 7,5% and in the USA 38,7%. 27,9% of the German participants want to save on security technologies, only 13,2% in Italy. With these cuts, too, the USA leads the way with a value of 49,3% – around 21 percentage points above the average in all countries surveyed.
Trust in your own IT security
In general, companies with 1.000 or more employees have confidence in their IT security. Among the German participants, 98,5% are very or somewhat confident that they have the tools, strategies and personnel to deal with them. This puts Germany at the top. The result is almost ten percentage points above the figure for Great Britain (88,6%).
Differences in the level of confidence become visible when comparing how many companies are “very confident” about the state of their own defences. That is 51,5% in Germany (2nd place). Surprisingly, the frequently attacked companies in the USA are also the front runners here with 74,7%. Germany is followed by the other countries, some way ahead of the confident Americans: Italy (44,1%), Spain (39,4%) and, with greater doubts, Great Britain (30%) and France (20,9%). Perhaps it is a matter of mentality and business culture whether a participant answers "very confident" or "fairly confident" to this question.
However, differences in the sense of security are clearly recognizable. This becomes clear in the proportion of companies that are "not" or "not very confident": In Germany, this skepticism is lowest with a proportion of only 1,5% who affirm these statements. This puts Germany ahead of the optimistic Americans (2,7%). The interviewees in France (4,5%), Spain (7,6%), Italy (8,8%) and Great Britain are significantly more pessimistic with 11,4%.
weekend work for them IT security ?
🔎 The willingness to invest in IT security varies quite a bit (Image: Bitdefender).
Slightly more than every second IT security officer in Germany often has to work for their company on weekends for IT security reasons. At 51,5%, the value is below the average for other countries (59,2%) - and on a level with colleagues in Spain (exactly 50%) and Italy (48,5%). In the other countries, deployments on Saturdays and Sundays are much more common: The USA (80%) are the front runners, followed by Great Britain (64,3%) and France (58,2%).
Only to a limited extent actively looking for a job: In view of the mixture of factors such as a shortage of skilled workers, high salaries and high demand, one could assume that the respondents are intensively looking for a new job. But there can be no question of a general search for new positions. In Germany, only 30,9% of the study participants plan to look for a new job in the next twelve months - this is significantly less than - again - in the USA (57,3%), Great Britain (45,7%) or France (46,3%). Only respondents from Spain (28,8%) and Italy (25%) were less willing to change. Of course, this does not show how the participants react to a poaching attempt.
More and more sophisticated phishing attacks
"The study suggests that German IT security officers are not completely helpless in the face of cyber attacks," explains Jörg von der Heydt, Regional Director DACH at Bitdefender. "Nevertheless, those surveyed in Germany are closely following the risk situation: 80,9% of those surveyed registered an increase in sophisticated phishing attacks on their company, for example."
"Everyone involved is aware that security solutions and external help for one's own cyber defense play an important role," von der Heydt continued. “Two out of three companies plan to increase their security investments. However, 30,9% even of these large companies do not have the capacity to deal with the complex risk situation. This is what they cite as a reason to use or seek managed detection and response. Only 1,5% say they neither use nor plan to use such a service.”
Background to the study
The study commissioned by Bitdefender was conducted by market research company Censuswide. More than 400 IT professionals from various industries, from IT managers to CISOs, working in companies with more than 1.000 employees were surveyed. The survey was aimed at professionals and security leaders in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
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About Bitdefender Bitdefender is a leading global provider of cybersecurity solutions and antivirus software, protecting over 500 million systems in more than 150 countries. Since it was founded in 2001, the company's innovations have consistently ensured excellent security products and intelligent protection for devices, networks and cloud services for private customers and companies. As the supplier of choice, Bitdefender technology is found in 38 percent of security solutions deployed around the world and is trusted and recognized by industry experts, manufacturers and customers alike. www.bitdefender.de