Trellix Report Gauges Cyber Readiness of Indian, Australian and Japanese Government Agencies and Critical Infrastructure Providers

Trellix, the cybersecurity company delivering the future of extended detection and response (XDR), today released a global Cyber Readiness Report gauging technology adoption and perceptions of government cybersecurity leadership related to cybersecurity standards and the cooperation between the public and private sectors.

The Trellix report shows 89% of respondents from India, Australia and Japan believe formalized, government-led initiatives can play an important role in improving their nations’ protection against cyber threats. Respondents from these countries see opportunities for improvement in their partnerships with government in areas such as cyber defense coordination, threat information sharing and software supply chain integrity.

The study, based on research conducted globally by Vanson Bourne, surveyed 900 cybersecurity professionals from organizations with 500 or more employees, including 200 respondents in India, Australia and Japan.

“Global tensions and cyber-warfare incidents in Ukraine sharpen our focus on the cyber readiness of government and critical infrastructure,” said Bryan Palma, CEO of Trellix. “Our report assesses the progress of new technology implementation, like XDR. It also identifies areas of opportunity for stronger public-private partnerships, where increased coordination will keep us ahead of our adversaries.”

Cybersecurity technology adoption. Among Japanese respondents, 32% claim to have fully implemented endpoint detection and response and extended detection and response (EDR-XDR) and cloud cybersecurity modernization. Zero trust and multifactor authentication (MFA) appeared to be close behind with 31% and 29% respectively.

32% of Indian respondents claim to have fully implemented cloud cybersecurity modernization. The cyber defense technologies lagging furthest behind within this group appear to be zero trust architectures and EDR-XDR with only 25% and 22% fully deployed respectively.

31% of Australian respondents reported fully deploying EDR-XDR solutions. Technologies lagging further behind include cloud cybersecurity modernization (24%), MFA (24%) and zero trust (16%).

Software Supply Chain Risk. The majority (82%) of global respondents believe software supply chain risk management policies and processes are of either high or crucial importance to national security.

74% of Japanese respondents identified these policies and processes as extremely or highly difficult to implement, and only 26% claim to have fully implemented such practices.

65% of Indian respondents and 63% of Australian respondents identified these policies and processes as difficult to implement, with only 40% of Australians and 35% of Indians claiming full implementation.

64% of Australians, 59% of Indians and 52% of Japanese surveyed support government mandates demanding cybersecurity standards for software. But respondents from all three countries are concerned there could be drawbacks to such mandates.

51% of Indian respondents believe such mandates could result in government requirements that are too complex and ultimately too expensive to implement. Around half of Australian respondents believe government software security mandates will be too complex and expensive to implement and that government timelines will be difficult to meet. Roughly the same percent ages of Japanese are also concerned about the costs and complexity of such mandates.

Cyber Skills Challenges. While survey respondents identified a variety of barriers to the implementation of advanced technologies, a cybersecurity talent shortage was revealed across the three countries.

60% of Indian respondents and 45% of Japanese respondents identified a lack of implementation expertise as one of the biggest barriers to implementation. 49% of Australian respondents and 42% of Japanese repondents identified a lack of in-house staff resources as one of their biggest barriers. These findings mirrored cybersecurity skills shortages in the U.S. and Europe.

Palma continued: “The cyber skills gap is well known; the report highlights the deficit is stifling the deployment of cybersecurity technology. Whatever innovation advantage the U.S. and its allies believe we have is irrelevant if we cannot implement the solutions.”

Public-Private Partnerships. 93% of Indians, 90% of Australians and 85% of Japanese surveyed believe there is room for improvement in the level of cybersecurity partnerships between their national governments and organizations.

59% of Indians surveyed believe their government could provide more funding to organizations such as theirs to improve cybersecurity, and 53% favor tighter cooperation on the investigation of attacks following their discovery.

Half of Australian respondents supported a combination of incident notification and liability protection to facilitate sharing of attack data between impacted organizations, government partners and industry audiences. Half of Japanese respondents showed support for tighter cooperation on the investigation of attacks following their discovery.

In terms of the types of data government should share to help organizations better protect themselves, nearly two-thirds (64%) of Indian respondents valued more data about common cybersecurity vulnerabilities. 61% of Japanese and 56% of Australians surveyed said they would like to receive more data on attack vectors used by adversaries. 58% of Japanese, 52% of Indians and 44% of Australians surveyed would like to receive more data on cyber-attacks in progress.