Cyber Threat Intelligence Saves Enterprises Millions

Demand for cyber threat intelligence (CTI) capabilities is growing. More than 85 percent of respondents to the Ponemon Value of Threat Intelligence survey and report we sponsored ranked it as a top security priority. One analyst firm predicts that enterprises will soon be investing 20 percent of their security budgets into it.

Demand for CTI is high because organizations recognize that it helps them to understand and respond to the enormous volume of threats that constantly target them. Daily, we see examples of how enterprises use CTI delivered via the Anomali Threat Platform to save themselves from falling victim to data breaches, ransomware attacks, espionage and other forms of cyber incidents. New research shows that organizations using threat intelligence are also experiencing another form of savings — financial.

In Security technologies that provide the most savings, CSO’s Dan Swinehoe wrote that recent research published by Accenture and Ponemon revealed how much money various security technologies are helping users to save. According to Dan, CTI leads the pack:

Security intelligence and threat sharing, which is used by 67 percent of enterprises in the study, provides the most cost savings at $2.26 million on average, according to the report.

Just what does “savings” mean in this case? Great question. The report itself explains that the $2.26 million is a “net” savings. In other words, it is the cost of the total savings minus how much was invested.

It’s worth mentioning that CTI isn’t the only security technology saving organizations money. The report analyzed ROI on nine. The three trailing CTI listed by Dan are:

Automation and Analytics: $2 million

Automation and machine learning were used by just a third of companies but could offer savings of over $2 million per enterprise.

IAM: $1.83 million

One older technology that is still driving plenty of value is identity and access management (IAM). Used by over 60 percent of organizations, it can help reduce costs by $1.83 per organization.

Basic Security: $200,000

Many older, more well-established security technologies – data loss prevention (DLP), perimeter controls and policy management – provided the least in cost savings; all offering less than $200,000 in savings compared to their costs.