In our annual survey among 4,744 global respondents around the current state of cybersecurity resilience, we found that many CISOs feel recognition for their role in fulfilling the business strategy is well overdue—85% agree or strongly agree that the cybersecurity strategy is developed with business objectives, such as growth or market share, in mind.

Yet, most business executives (78%) said that they don’t know how or when a cybersecurity incident will affect their organizations. It’s a sentiment that continues to increase from our 2020 report when it was still high at 69%.

A majority of respondents (81%) say that “staying ahead of attackers is a constant battle and the cost is unsustainable” compared with 69% in 2020. In fact, we found that respondents experienced a 32% increase over 2020 in the number of successful cyber attacks, while some attacks, such as ransomware, have seen a much higher increase.

This year, we continued our exploration of leaders in cyber resilience. Due to the rapid increase in high-profile attacks and sheer complexity of handling cybersecurity demands, we also tested what difference it made to cyber resilience if there was a stronger alignment between cybersecurity practices and the business strategy.