A new MeriTalk study has found that 90 percent of federal information technology executives say their agencies have experienced a drop in security breaches such as insider threats and malware driven by the adoption of big data analytics.
The report titled “Navigating the Cybersecurity Equation†is underwritten by Cloudera and is based on an online poll of 150 federal IT managers in July, MeriTalk said Monday.
The survey also found that 81 percent of federal IT executives said their agencies have implemented big data analytics for cybersecurity purposes, while nearly 60 percent said their agencies still face cyber challenges at least once a month as a result of inability to perform data analysis.
Factors that affect federal agencies’ efforts to analyze data for cybersecurity measures include the lack of skilled staff and management support as well as potential privacy concerns.
“Internal and external cybersecurity threats will continue to evolve daily and we need to unlock the power of the data in order to regain the advantage,†said Rocky DeStefano, a cybersecurity subject matter expert at Cloudera.
“Agencies need complete visibility into the data across their enterprise.â€
The study also revealed that 94 percent of respondents said they plan to make big data analytics-focused investments over the next couple of years in the areas of technology infrastructure, business intelligence and hardware.
MeriTalk also found that 84 percent of respondents think the adoption of big data analytics has helped prevent cyber attacks, while 88 percent believe their agencies encounter difficulties to derive cyber intelligence from data.
