2017 State of the Network Study

Network Teams Spend More Time on Data Security Amidst New Threats

Over 1,000 network pros weigh-in on the increasing involvement of network teams in data security issues.

This year’s study focused on security threats, perhaps explaining why it garnered the highest response rate in the survey’s history. Respondents included 1,035 CIOs, IT directors, and network engineers around the world. The study is now available for download.

As our State of the Network study shows, enterprise network teams are expending more time and resources than ever before to battle security threats. Not only are they faced with a growing number of attacks, but hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods and malware. Dealing with these types of advanced, persistent security threats requires planning, resourcefulness and greater visibility throughout the network to ensure that threat intelligence information is always at hand.

Results were compiled from the insights of 1,035 respondents—nearly 40 percent more than in the 2016 study—including network engineers, IT directors and CIOs from around the world.

Study Highlights:

Stretched thin: A full 88 percent are now involved in security investigations and 80 percent of those report an increase in the time they spend on these investigations.

Time crunch: Three out of four spend up to 10 hours per week working exclusively on security issues.

Changing threats: Over half report an increased sophistication of attacks with 63 percent seeing a spike in email and browser malware.