Immersive Cyber Readiness Survey

Cyber Leaders Under Pressure: Proving Readiness in an Evolving Threat Landscape

Cyber threats are constantly evolving and the stakes are higher than ever before, with the global average cost of a breach now estimated to be $4.88 million per year. 

But do cyber leaders believe their organizations are prepared for attacks—and can they prove their readiness? We commissioned an independent Cyber Readiness Survey with Sapio Research to find out.

The results highlight the growing pressures on cyber leaders to demonstrate readiness to top executives (especially in light of new industry regulations), the threats they believe are most concerning (from software vulnerabilities to GenAI), and the prevalence of attacks.

Most notably, the survey reveals the large-scale adoption of cyber drills—exercises that pressure test teams against a simulated attack to prepare them for real ones—as a critical approach to ensure workforce readiness.

Key Findings: Cyber Readiness in Focus

Immersive’s Cyber Readiness Survey offers a window into how cyber leaders are proving and improving cyber capabilities across their workforce amid growing threats and other key cybersecurity trends.

Here are a few key findings: 

‍Pressure to communicate cyber readiness to Boards: 96% of cyber leaders believe effectively communicating cyber-readiness to senior leadership and boards will be crucial in 2025, likely driven by regulatory compliance requirements and an increase in attacks.

• Prevalence of cyber attacks: Nearly half (49%) of those surveyed report having experienced a cyberattack in the past year.
• High cyber drill adoption: 94% of respondents have deployed cyber drills, or plan to, within the next three years to better prepare their people for threats.
• Importance of hands-on exercising: 44% of decision-makers report that hands-on exercising is among the most effective methods when it comes to preparing for threats.
• Opportunity to better measure readiness: Only 39% of cyber decision-makers' time is dedicated to enhancing and evaluating cyber readiness, showcasing an opportunity for more focus on proving and improving capabilities.

Digging deeper into these findings offers a range of insights—from cyber leaders’ methods of preparation for attacks to perceived barriers, believed to stand in the way of readiness.

The Strategic Shift to Cyber Drills

• More than half (57%) of cyber leaders have already implemented cyber drills, with a further 38% planning to follow over the coming three years, indicating a shift towards ensuring teams have experience confronting attacks in high-stress environments. 
• Cyber drills are beneficial because they often reveal skills or judgement gaps in even the most confident teams—areas that can be improved before it’s too late.

Barriers to Cyber-readiness and a Silver Lining

• Three-quarters (76%) of cyber leaders face barriers to cyber-readiness, with the biggest roadblock being prioritization of other business objectives that give demonstrable ROI (31%). 
• Interstingly, despite these barriers, senior leadership is not one of them. Organizations report that board-level and senior leadership’s understanding of cyber-readiness is high, with more than half (55%) reporting that their leaders are cyber-savvy.

Most Daunting Threats for Cyber Leaders

• Companies perceive the most significant risks to be software and cloud vulnerabilities (51%) and ransomware attacks (46%), followed by GenAI threats and Phishing, both at 44%. 
• Around half of the surveyed businesses admitted to having faced a cyber attack over the past year. 
• This demonstrates the urgent need for consistent cyber drilling and exercising to fortify organizational defenses against cyber attacks.

Taken in total, these findings reveal cyber leaders are under immense pressure to ensure their organizations are well prepared for whatever threats arise and must regularly demonstrate this to higher-ups. While the range of threats is immense and constantly shifting, leaders are hard at work implementing strategies to better prepare their people. Yet, the big opportunity to improve will be in more regularly assessing teams across the workforce to ensure teams are ready and cyber leaders have the data they need to demonstrate readiness to Boards and other key stakeholders.

Cyber Readiness Survey Methodology

The survey, commissioned by Immersive and executed by Sapio Research, garnered responses from 400 IT security decision-makers, managers and above, employed in organizations with a workforce of 250+ across the UK and the US. The survey's digital interviews were conducted in December 2024, utilizing an email invitation and an online survey.

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To learn more about how your organization can be ready for cyber threats, get our ‘Make or Break Cyber Resilience Guide’ here.

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