ENDPOINT DISRUPTION

Absolute Security research involving 1,000 CISOs in the US and UK found that endpoint downtime costs enterprises an average of US $ 19 million per hour.

nterprises face average costs of

US $ 19 million per hour when endpoint devices become inoperable, according to new research from Absolute Security.

The Autonomous Cyber Resilience in the Era of AI report, the third volume in Absolute Security’ s State of Enterprise Cyber Resilience research series, is based on a Censuswide survey of 1,000 Chief Information Security Officers, comprising of 500 respondents in the US and 500 in the UK.

The research found that 88 % of respondents believe autonomous recovery capabilities could deliver a measurable reduction in the cost of downtime incidents. However, only 4 % described their organisations as‘ broadly autonomous’.

“ Downtime is the real cost of a breach, it often exceeds every other related cost and is capable of permanently damaging

Trust in autonomous solutions remains among the top barriers standing between enterprises and the recovery speed they need to minimise downtime. a business,” said Christy Wyatt, President and CEO, Absolute Security.“ With threat actors now leveraging AI and agentic tools to launch attacks and spot vulnerabilities at rates previously unimaginable, security and risk leaders are faced with either continuing to fall victim to costly disruptions or deploying solutions that operate with the same speed and efficiency as those being used against them.”

The study also examined the impact of Artificial Intelligence on vulnerability exploitation. Some 41 % of organisations reported experiencing AI-accelerated vulnerability exploitation during the past 12 months, while 58 % of respondents believe attackers using AI are weaponising vulnerabilities faster than organisations can patch them.

Trust emerged as the most commonly cited barrier to introducing autonomous technologies into production systems, identified by 38 % of respondents. Integration complexity was cited by 33 %, while 18 % identified budget as a barrier.

The survey also explored attitudes towards Anthropic Mythos and similar technologies. Some 43 % of respondents agreed that such tools presented too much risk for their organisations to consider using, compared with 32 % who disagreed. In addition, 41 % said the technologies should be blocked within their organisations until more is known about how they operate.

“ Trust in autonomous solutions remains among the top barriers standing between enterprises and the recovery speed they need to minimise downtime. This research will help security leaders see the risk they’ re up against and give them the confidence needed to cross the bridge to autonomous recovery,” said Wyatt.

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