Proofpoint’s 2023 Voice of the CISO report revelations

Proofpoint, Inc., a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, today released its annual Voice of the CISO report, which explores key challenges, expectations, and priorities of chief information security officers. The findings reveal that most CISOs have returned to the elevated concerns they experienced early in the pandemic. Fifty-five percent of CISOs in Saudi Arabia surveyed feel at risk of a material cyberattack, compared to 27% the year before, when they may have felt a brief sense of calm after adapting to the chaos of the pandemic. This year’s data is a shift back to 2021 when 58% of CISOs in the Kingdom believed a material attack was imminent. Likewise, sentiments about preparedness levels have reversed: 49% feel unprepared to cope with a targeted cyber-attack, showing a significant increase over last year’s 28% and a decrease from 2021’s 66%.

While organizations have largely over- come the disruptions of the last two years, the effects of the Great Resignation and employee turnover continue to linger, exacerbated by the recent wave of mass layoffs—90% of CISOs in Saudi Arabia say that employees leaving the organization played a role in a data loss event. Even though 65% of security leaders had to deal with the loss of sensitive information in the past 12 months, 50% believe they have adequate data protection in place.

The 2023 Voice of the CISO report examines global third-party survey responses from more than 1,600 CISOs at mid-to-large size organizations across different industries. Throughout the course of Q1 2023, 100 CISOs were interviewed in each market across 16 countries: the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, UAE, KSA, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Brazil.