CISOs struggle to keep up with cybercriminals

More than half of security leaders cannot detect data breaches.

Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) and security leaders globally, including Singapore, are struggling as cybercriminals outpace their organisation’s cybersecurity defences, a report by Gigamon Survey revealed.

Despite global information security spending projected to reach $215b in 2024, 51% of security leaders in Singapore cannot detect data breaches in the last 12 months using existing security tools, with 70% of CISOs citing blind spots hindering breach detection.

Chaim Mazal, chief security officer at Gigamon, stressed the need for CISOs to reassess their cybersecurity tool stacks and prioritise investments that bolster their infrastructure.

A key focus in 2025 is gaining greater visibility into encrypted traffic, with 84% of CISOs placing it as a top priority. Additionally, 81% of security leaders agree that securing hybrid cloud infrastructures requires comprehensive visibility into all data-in-motion.

The survey of 234 CISOs also highlights tool consolidation as a primary goal, with 60% of CISOs listing it as the top strategy to address visibility gaps, Gigamon said.

Over-reliance on an increasing number of security tools has led to operational strain, with 76% of CISOs feeling overwhelmed by the volume of threats detected across numerous assets. This growing complexity is further compounded by rising costs associated with data storage and management.

Amidst concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) in cyberattacks, 83% of CISOs expect AI to significantly impact ransomware threats in the coming year. Security leaders in Singapore are particularly proactive, with 54% planning to use AI and automation to address visibility gaps, outpacing their global counterparts at 46%.

As organisations grapple with hybrid cloud environments, deep observability has emerged as a critical security measure. In Singapore, 87% of security leaders consider it crucial to cloud security, higher than the Asia Pacific average.

CISOs are slowly valuing network-derived intelligence, with 85% of CISOs noting the importance of access to packet-level data and application metadata for improved security. This view has also reached boardroom discussions, with 83% of Singaporean leaders making deep observability a priority in their budget planning for 2025.

Stephen Elliott, group vice president, IT Operations, Observability, and CloudOps at IDC, emphasised the convergence of security and observability, noting that network-derived insights are crucial for modern security teams to assess threats accurately and prioritise their response strategies.