Cyber Risk Index highlights elevated risk as Canadian organizations struggle with visibility

Toronto, Nov. 24, 2022 – Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, today announced that 90% of Canadian organizations have had customer records compromised at least once over the past 12 months as they struggle to profile and defend an expanding attack surface.

The findings come from Trend Micro's semi-annual Cyber Risk Index (CRI) report, compiled by the Ponemon Institute from interviews with over 4,100 organizations across North America, Europe, Latin/South America, and Asia-Pacific, of which 470 are Canadian.

 “Hybrid work has created a new layer  of complex, distributed IT environments. As a result, we’ve seen a significant number of Canadian organizations being breached this year,” said Antoine Saikaley, Technical Director, Trend Micro Canada.  “Many organizations are finding it difficult to mitigate growing security coverage and visibility gaps. To avoid the attack surface spiraling out of control, they need to combine asset discovery and monitoring with threat detection and response on a single platform."

The CRI calculates the gap between organizational preparedness and the likelihood of being attacked, with -10 representing the highest level of risk. The Canadian CRI index moved from + 0.16 in 2H 2021 to -0.30 in 1H 2022, indicating a surging level of risk over the past six months.

This trend is also reflected elsewhere in the data: the number of Canadian organizations experiencing a "successful" cyber-attack increased from 83% to 93% over the same period. Unsurprisingly, the number now expected to be compromised over the coming year has also increased from 74% to 86%.

Some of the top preparedness risks highlighted by the index report are related to attack surface discovery capabilities. It is often challenging for security professionals to identify the physical location of business-critical data assets and applications.

From the business perspective, the biggest concern is the misalignment between CISOs and business executives. Based on the scores given by the respondents, “My organization’s IT security objectives are aligned with business objectives” only has a score of 4.35 out of 10.

Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute: "The CRI continues to provide a fascinating snapshot of how global organizations perceive their security posture and the likelihood of being attacked. The stakes couldn't be higher in the face of stiff macroeconomic headwinds. Respondents pointed to the high cost of outside expertise, damage to critical infrastructure, and lost productivity as the main negative consequences of a breach."

Overall, Canadian respondents rated the following as the top cyber threats in 1H 2022:

1. Advanced malware
2. Cryptomining
3. Watering hole attacks
4. Botnets
5. Business Email Compromise (BEC)

By addressing the shortage of cybersecurity professionals and improving security processes and technology, organizations will significantly reduce their vulnerability to attacks.

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To read a full copy of the latest Cyber Risk Index, please visit: www.trendmicro.com/cyberrisk

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defence techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com.