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ThreatQuotient Publishes 2024 Evolution of Cybersecurity Automation Adoption Research Report

Survey results highlight that cybersecurity automation is now an important part of cybersecurity professionals’ defensive strategy – but organisations want highly targeted, customised automation and threat intelligence that enables them to collaborate.

 

LONDON, UK – 19th of November, 2024 – ThreatQuotient™, a leading threat intelligence platform innovator, today released the Evolution of Cybersecurity Automation Adoption 2024. Based on survey results from 750 senior cybersecurity professionals at companies in the U.K., U.S. and Australia from a range of industries, this in-depth research report examines the progress senior cybersecurity professionals are making towards adopting automation, its key use cases and the challenges they face. The fourth edition of this annual survey highlights how automation is maturing and how, in a world of continuous change, organisations are adopting cybersecurity automation for resilience, scale and collaboration. The report examines approaches to integration, whether respondents are taking a single-vendor platform approach or best-of-breed, the adoption of AI and the importance of cyber threat intelligence sharing.

 

Eight-in-ten respondents (80%) now say cybersecurity automation is important, up from 75% last year and 68% the previous year. Additionally, budget for cybersecurity automation has increased every year, and this year’s survey is no different with 99% of respondents increasing spend on automation. Interestingly, 39% of respondents now have net new budget specifically for automation, a significant rise on the 18.5% who said this last year. Previously, decision-makers were diverting budget from other cybersecurity tools or reallocating unused headcount funds. In 2024 respondents have a better understanding of key uses cases and the benefits automation delivers is helping them make a stronger business case for dedicated budget, which is another indication that cybersecurity automation is maturing.

 

Key research findings also include:

 

  • Key use cases: Incident response was the top use case for automation (32%), rising consistently through the course of the study. This was followed by phishing analysis (30%) and threat hunting (30%) which has also continued to rise.

 

  • Challenges are evolving: Nearly every survey participant reported problems with cybersecurity automation: the top three challenges were technological issues, lack of budget and lack of time.  As automation deployments mature, trust in the outcomes of automated processes has increased. Just 20% of respondents reported a lack of trust in outcomes, compared to 31% last year. In 2023 there was also significant concern around bad decisions, slow user adoption and lack of skills, but these concerns have abated in 2024.

 

  • Top measurement metrics: Employee satisfaction and retention remains the main metric for assessing cybersecurity automation ROI for 43% of leaders, but this has dropped from 61.5% citing it as the key metric in 2023. Resource management, in terms of staff efficiency, effectiveness and budget (42%), and how well the job is being done in terms of MTTR and MTTD (38%) have both become more prevalent as measurement tools as organisations home in on metrics more closely linked to productivity and efficiency.

 

  • Growth in threat intelligence sharing: Ninety-nine percent of cybersecurity professionals say they share cyber threat intelligence through at least one channel; 54% share cyber threat intelligence with their direct partners and suppliers and 48% share with others in their industry through official threat sharing communities.

 

  • Integration is key: Two thirds (67%) of respondents integrate best of breed solutions into their architecture to effectively deliver their cybersecurity strategy. Regardless of whether they focus solely on best of breed tools or they start with a single vendor platform and then supplement with best of breed tools, integrating tools is an important activity.

 

  • AI gathers momentum: Fifty eight percent of respondents say they are using AI in cybersecurity. Half are using it everywhere, and half in specific use cases.  A further 20% are planning deployments in the year ahead.

 

  • Expected attack vectors in the year ahead: Cyber-physical attacks are considered most likely in the year ahead, followed by phishing and ransomware. Although not a top three attack vector, 20% of respondents expect to see attacks via the supply chain and one in five see state-sponsored attacks affecting their business.

 

“It is tough for cybersecurity professionals who now face fast-changing cyber and cyber-physical threats of unprecedented sophistication, volume, velocity and variety,” said Leon Ward, Vice President, Product Management, ThreatQuotient. “Defending their business is an enormous task, and cybersecurity professionals must become more resilient.

 

“What we are seeing in this ‘new normal’ landscape is the need for more automation, scale and better threat intelligence sharing.  A collaborative approach to cybersecurity helps organisations better defend as industries scale their knowledge to respond to attacks.”

 

As organisations double down on cybersecurity automation use cases that deliver value and embrace more intelligence sharing, this will result in more effective and proactive cyber defence. This year the survey highlights the focus has shifted toward ROI metrics that are more closely linked to productivity and efficiency and – while employee retention and satisfaction remains important – it is no longer heavily outweighing performance and efficiency KPIs.

 

Ward concludes, “We believe that scaling security operations and collaboration across teams, ecosystems and industries is the most urgent challenge facing cybersecurity professionals. Successfully uniting human expertise, automation and AI and enabling seamless integration across tools and intelligence feeds will drive cyber resilience and agility at organisational, industry, and international levels.”

 

To download the full Evolution of Cybersecurity Automation Adoption in 2024 report, including more detail on the survey questions, regional and industry snapshots, and recommendations for senior security professionals to follow if they are looking to automate their security processes, click here. To access the report, click here.

 

Report Methodology

Leading threat intelligence platform innovator, ThreatQuotient, commissioned a survey undertaken by independent research organisation, Opinion Matters, in June 2024. 750 senior cybersecurity professionals in the UK., US. and Australia from companies employing 2,000+ people from a range of industries including Central Government, Defence, Critical National Infrastructure, Retail, and Financial Services sectors, with 150 respondents from each.

 

About ThreatQuotient 

ThreatQuotient improves security operations by fusing together disparate data sources, tools and teams to accelerate threat detection and response. ThreatQ is the first purpose-built, data-driven threat intelligence platform that helps teams prioritise, automate and collaborate on security incidents; enables more focused decision making; and maximises limited resources by integrating existing processes and technologies into a unified workspace. The result is reduced noise, clear priority threats, and the ability to automate processes with high fidelity data. ThreatQuotient’s industry leading integration marketplace, data management, orchestration and automation capabilities support multiple use cases including threat intelligence management and sharing, incident response, threat hunting, spear phishing, alert triage and vulnerability management. ThreatQuotient is headquartered in Northern Virginia with international operations based out of Europe, MENA and APAC. For more information, visit www.threatquotient.com.

 

Media Contact 

Paula Elliott
C8 Consulting for ThreatQuotient
+44 7894 339645
paula@c8consulting.co.uk

 

News, Tech, Technology

Medallia launches Agile Research as addition to Medallia Experience Cloud

The integration of Agile Research provides a self-service solution for market research and insights teams and the ability to align with existing CX programmes

Medallia, the global leader in customer and employee experience, today announced the launch of Medallia Agile Research, a fully self-service advanced market research tool that will be fully integrated into Medallia Experience Cloud. This innovative product will be available for all Medallia Experience Cloud users to enable customer experience, research, and insights teams to leverage one unified platform to measure and analyse consumer, market and brand insights for a comprehensive view of the business ecosystem.

Designed for self-service, Medallia Agile Research enables researchers to move quickly and iterate on demand for one-off surveys, competitive analysis, and brand/product research. These capabilities allow organisations to quickly learn about any topic, all while protecting the integrity of the company’s historical data. Advanced statistical analysis enables researchers to go beyond simple analysis to get to the root of insights and recommend actions that will deliver ROI.

“The introduction of Medallia Agile Research brings an intuitive, easy to use, self-service market research solution to companies who want to move quickly to conduct market and competitive research, and iterate changes quickly, without invalidating the historical data of their customer retention and customer experience platform. Now, companies get the best of both worlds directly in the Medallia platform, which is unique for experience management platforms,” said Simonetta Turek, Chief Product Officer at Medallia. “The world’s most trusted and admired brands already use Medallia to power their customer and employee experience programmes and by providing them a completely self-service tool in Agile Research, they can obtain cost savings by not having to leverage separate platforms for market research.”

By integrating Agile Research within Medallia Experience Cloud, companies can take advantage of a variety of benefits, including:

  • Reduced Cost: Organisations can save money by consolidating high-cost platforms and by bringing agency-driven research studies in-house.
  • Speed-to-Insights: Easy-to-use DIY surveys deliver fast, quality research insights to help brand teams keep pace with rapid changes in the marketplace and deliver insights to stakeholders on how to increase customer loyalty.
  • Global Reach: Access to millions of respondents worldwide (in 80+ languages) through a third-party panel, with administration fully integrated in the platform.
  • Unified Platform: Break down silos and connect insights from across the organisation, capturing and analysing customer data all with one source of truth in Medallia Experience Cloud.

For more information about Medallia Agile Research, visit our site at: www.medallia.com/agile-research

 

News

Market research disruptor Bolt Insight receives funding to accelerate UK market penetration

London-based Bolt Insight, which helps global and local brands collect market research in 120+ countries in a matter of hours, has received £1.275m investment from vc company 212, to accelerate its plans to become the fastest growing market research-tech business.  The investment will be used to develop new products for new and existing customers, employ new staff in its research and commercial teams, as well as furthering plans for expansion to additional markets, all of which will help achieve Bolt’s vision of connecting brands with their most relevant target audiences. 

Bolt Insight, which launched in the UK in January 2020 at the height of the pandemic, has  grown eightfold since then, has UK-based clients such as Vodafone, Capco, Brand Finance and international clients including Sodexo, Premier Foods, L’Oreal, Samsung, Diageo and Zeiss for whom Bolt works across several international markets including in the UK. Its key asset is combining disruptive behavioral recruitment targeting to help companies big and small connect with their audiences however niche, through anyone using a digital device, which means it can provide global data coverage among very specific consumer targets which traditional research methodologies simply cannot achieve. 

The Market Research Society estimates that the UK research insight and analytics industry is worth £7billion and, according to ESOMAR, the data and analytics segment has doubled in the last 10 years, growing 8% per year with a third of this spending driven by market research in the FMCG sector.  The increasing importance of data transformation is evidenced by the rise in the position of CDO (Chief Data Officer) and in Europe 26% of organisations now have one, especially in sectors like insurance, banking and media & entertainment (Source: PWC).  

The enormous potential in the UK market for Bolt is partly a result of the COVID-19 pandemic as e-commerce changed the consumer landscape to a purely digital one and consumer behaviours shifted.  According to McKinsey, between March and August 2020, one in five consumers switched brands, and seven in ten tried new digital shopping channels. The retail sector experienced ten years of growth in digital penetration in a matter of months.  

Ester Marchetti, ex Unilever, Reckitt and Nielsen, and co-founder of Bolt Insight explains “The UK market, a key hub both in terms of company headquarters and market research innovation was crucial in finding early adopters of our disruptive methodology in what has been a largely traditional area: market research.  Companies go to great lengths to understand their customers. Consumer-centricity and empathy are a must for any organisation willing to thrive amidst uncertainty.  Our behavioural targeting–based methodology and unparalleled access to consumers fuels our vision to give brand marketeers a virtual seat next to their customers, so that they can co-create with them, and reflect what audiences want in their strategy, innovation and communications.”

Bolt Insight’s success is based on two key market dynamics: the fact that 9 out of 10 products and services fail within the first two years post-launch and that consumer expectations and preferences are changing quickly, markets are fragmenting and companies need to understand their customers better and faster. As a result, the insights world is going through a transformation.  Bolt Insight assists global companies with their expansion strategies and is proving particularly successful with brands in consumer goods, retail, fashion, beauty, health & lifestyle, e-commerce, financial services, pharmaceuticals and telecoms. 

Ali Karabey from 212 who will join the Bolt Insight Board said “We invest in problem-solvers and teams that tackle hard, global-scale problems with simple and elegant solutions. We are convinced by the Bolt Insight team’s ability to dramatically transform the quantitative market research space, enabling companies to collaboratively and openly develop their products to address users’ wants and needs better.“ 

Founded in 2020 by a team of professionals navigating the market research space for 10+ years, Bolt Insight addresses all the problems typically associated with traditional methods including for example the expense and time of quantitative market research and the ineffectiveness of panels and cold calls given a global society’s ever-changing needs and agenda.  At the same time, Bolt is pleased to have made market research available to companies with fewer resources – in both team time and budget.   

News

Dialectica Launches B2B Surveys Service, Expanding its Product Portfolio to Shape Better Business Decision Making Worldwide

London-headquartered information services company, Dialectica, has today announced the launch of B2B Surveys service to enhance its comprehensive portfolio of bespoke insights services. The proposition is designed to enable Dialectica’s clients – the world’s leading consulting, hedge fund, and private equity companies to gather proprietary quantitative insights utilizing research methods that have historically been limited to the B2C insights world. The product development has been born out of client requests for a bespoke survey offering that matches the firm’s expert interview proposition.

At a time when we’re seeing the appetite for validated and trusted business insights and market data soar worldwide, businesses and investment professionals are looking for innovative ways to access primary research and real-time information to inform business decisions and evaluate billion-dollar investment opportunities. Dialectica’s B2B Surveys proposition has been architected to ensure clients can hold the confidence that their research datasets are representative of their highly niche markets of-interest, and with the assurance that survey responses are from the right B2B decision-makers. The service offers a one-stop-shop offering of survey design advisory, programming of the survey, custom recruitment of expert respondents and visualization of survey outputs. Critically the service provides transparency in survey respondent identity and enables high-speed insights generation to meet tight M&A deal and decision-making timetables.

“Private equity, hedge fund and consulting companies compete for access to proprietary insights and unique angles. Our B2B Survey proposition has been designed to enable Dialectica clients to generate differentiated quantified market insights where previously they had to rely on anecdotal qualitative narrative.” said Fred Corkett, Managing Director and Co-founder at Dialectica, who is leading the company’s Innovation Unit.

He continued: “Clients need fast access to real-time data and information to inform critical business decisions. Over the years, our clients have shared with us that while they had success launching survey programs in B2C markets, they faced challenges in gathering survey insights in niche B2B markets. By using a Dialectica B2B Survey; clients are able to properly evidence decision making within their consulting reports, investment committee papers, and corporate strategy decks.”

Dialectica’s Client Service team follows an agile research-first approach. Rather than rely on a static database like many other traditional expert network firms; the company starts with understanding the mandate the client is working on and follow through with comprehensive sector, market, value chain and company mapping. A comprehensive research playbook and a deep understanding of client needs enables its research team to generate proprietary sources of intelligence from unique and hard-to-find sources of B2B knowledge in any industry around the world. The company counts hundreds of success stories across numerous markets, from commercial drones, biotechnology, and medical imaging to agriculture, grocery retail, and many more.

With a vision to shape better decision-making worldwide, Dialectica partners with the world’s leading investment and consulting firms, as well as largest corporations, helping them to collect real-time information and market insights from industry experts across markets, industries, and regions.

 

George Tsarouchas, CEO and Co-founder at Dialectica said: “Helping our clients make smarter, better, and faster decisions is our team’s number one priority and all our services are built with this in mind. In just three years, our workforce, dedicated to achieving unparalleled customer recognition, expanded from 100 to 650+ employees. As our team continues to grow at a rapid speed, we’re investing heavily in building our proprietary cutting-edge technology, data assets, and a robust compliance framework to offer the best quality of service.”

 

Founded in 2015, Dialectica employs more than 650 people at its offices in London, Athens, Montreal, and Vancouver. The company has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe in 2022 and 2021 by the Financial Times and Statista. In 2021, Dialectica grew by 100% and was named a Best Workplace in Europe for its continued commitment to investing in its employees’ development and fostering a culture of trust and open communication. By 2025, Dialectica aims to reach the milestone of 1,200 team members across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Using innovative technologies, the company will continue to expand its commercial ventures and develop more information services products in the next three to five years.

News

59% of consumers believe taking a stance matters, research reveals

New research by Kubi Kalloo shows brands can gain exponentially by understanding consumer opinions
Opinion split on whether companies are being authentic or opportunistic when engaging with social and political issues
15% of consumers had already boycotted brands on the basis of the stance they had taken

London, UK, 16 March 2021: Brands can and should take a stance on social and political matters, according to new research by Kubi Kalloo and its partner Alligator Digital. A survey of 600 people in both the US and UK has uncovered that 59% of consumers believe taking a stance matters. Of this percentage, two-thirds take the issue seriously and are likely to buy from or boycott a brand based on their social media posts about an issue.

In a year that has seen major social and political upheaval, with movements such as Black Lives Matter, an accelerating climate crisis, and human rights issues gaining traction and spreading through social media channels, the way brands respond to these events directly impacts how consumers view them. The survey also found that 15% of consumers had already boycotted a brand based on their response to the Black Lives Matter movement – this figure rises to 1 in 4 for consumers under the age of 35 years. This doesn’t mean it is less risky to avoid the conversation. Rather, it shows that brands need to know how and when to join the conversation.

Knowing your consumer = how and when to act

Kubi Kalloo’s research tested three examples of social media posts of brands responding to a social and human rights movement and the consumer reaction to them. The first post was simply relaying the message, the second post was educating the consumer, and the third post was evidencing commitment to change at a broader level.

Among one consumer type, the brand taking a stance and committing to change, rather than solely relaying the message of the social issue, saw a 14% increase in intent to purchase after seeing the social media posts; it resulted in the group feeling the brand was more inclusive (+14%), progressive (+12%) and inspiring positive change (+12%). These positive changes in perception of brands committing to change were evident across each of the consumer segments.

In having a social or political voice, the research shows the necessity for brands to understand the consumer audience to make sure they are supported. The jury is still out on whether brands should join the conversation, with 53% saying brands and politics shouldn’t mix for instance, and 47% they should. But the findings are clear signs this proportion is changing, and strong incentives for brands to get involved in the conversations that matter to them.

Kristin Hickey, CEO and Founder of Kubi Kalloo, comments: “Does taking a stance actually matter? Yes, it does. Brands taking a stance on important issues in our society impacts how people feel about them and whether they choose to engage with them or turn their backs. Brands can be beacons of and influencers for important cultural change. However, the divide in results highlights that an intimate knowledge of your audience is really crucial when taking these stances, now more than ever; the opinions of a more socially-conscious consumer are being formed, and they are expecting brands to ‘do the right thing’.

Speaking up can be powerful; backing it up with behaviour is better

These results show the need for brands to be bold, make themselves suitable for the conversation and back up their statements with tangible action. Currently, only 45% of people believe that brands are being sincere when they take a social or political stance, with the 55% majority tending to believe they are being opportunistic. This position changes significantly, however, when people are exposed to evidence of authentic transformation at the heart of the brand and business operations supporting it, as evidenced by the results of the brand committing to change.

Kristin continued: “Once you know your consumer, you then need to ask ‘How do I communicate our brand values to this consumer?’. It is evident from this research that taking a stance needs to be supported with action, but also evidenced by action. Make sure your brand is not just talking but is actually doing something, otherwise consumers are likely to see your stance as inauthentic and simply opportunistic – there are plenty of examples of brands contradicting their statements with how they actually carry out their businesses.”

Kristin concluded: “The issues brands are speaking about are having a huge impact on the lives of real people. It’s important to take a stance, but in doing so you must understand that your actions will have a tangible impact. With appropriate understanding of the issues at stake, brands can activate their voice positively and with minimal downside risks. But it all comes down to knowing your audience, respecting their emotions, owning your own brand values and evidencing you are actioning them, not just posting them.’

About the research:
The research was self-sponsored and supported by Kubi Kalloo’s partners Alligator Digital. The survey was a case study of 600 people in the US and UK, and the sample was balanced for gender, age, region and political ideology. The research also included a series of focus groups and WhatsApp tasks discussing consumers positive and negative examples of brands.