Page 115 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

CISOs place a high priority on AI and machine learning and underscoring their shared belief that
intelligent automation is key to future-ready cyber defense.

Organizational Cyber Risk- CEO & CISO Perspective

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40

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10

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Ransomware Supply chain Cyber enabled Malicious Insider Disinformation Others
attack disruption fraud
CEO CISO

Source: World Economic Forum

The complexity of modern cyberattacks has outpaced the capacity of traditional cyber defense

At present, cyberattacks are becoming sophisticated with advanced persistent threats (APTs), zero day
attacks and supply chain attacks. For instance, Cisco’s 2024 Security Report states that over 3.4 billion
phishing emails are sent every day. In between December 21, 2023, and July 5, 2024, Darktrace / EMAIL
detected 17.8 million phishing emails across the fleet with 62% of these phishing emails successfully
bypassing Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) verification
checks. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant teams observed 97 zero-day vulnerabilities
exploited in the wild in 2023, a 56% increase y-o-y. Many of these attacks are highly targeted and difficult
to detect using traditional approaches. According to a 2025 IBM X-Force report, AI bots are capable of
independently scanning, learning and launching attacks in real-time.

Cybersecurity experts need to sift through thousands of alerts daily. Small organizations, on an average,
use between 15 and 20 cybersecurity tools, medium-sized businesses use 50 to 60 tools and large
organizations use over 130 tools on average, as per figures from 2019 RSA Conference. This often leads
to alert fatigue and fragmented visibility. Moreover, according to the 2024 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce
Study, 67% of respondents stated they had faced a staffing shortage which further reinforces the fact
that traditional defenses are no longer sufficient. This poses substantial consequences with respondents
identifying workforce shortages as their primary challenge and anticipate that this issue will remain a
major concern in the future.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 115
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