This virtual boardroom will be hosted by Checkpoint (NASDAQ: CHKP), a leading provider of cyber-security solutions globally, which has released the findings of a new survey that shows organizations’ key cyber-security priorities and challenges through to 2023 and highlights the changes to their security strategies forced by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020.

In this survey, over half of respondents said their organizations are facing more attacks and threats now than at the start of 2020.  The majority believe that their approach to security will not return to its pre-pandemic state, with just one in five saying that their security operations have returned to what they were. 

Key findings from the survey of over 600 IT security professionals globally are:

• Organizations’ biggest security challenges going into 2021: Security for employees working remotely was the leading challenge, followed by preventing phishing and social engineering attacks, maintaining secure remote access, protecting cloud applications and infrastructure.
• Security priorities for the next two years: The leading priorities through to 2023 is securing remote working, end point, mobile security, securing public or multiple, clouds which is clearly ahead of issues such as IoT security and email security.
• 2020’s shift in security strategies: 95 percent of respondents said their strategies had changed in the second half of the year, the biggest being enabling remote working at scale. Only just over a quarter said they had accelerated existing security projects during 2020, showing that for the majority, their pandemic response involved an unplanned re-invention of their business model.
• The new normal is here to stay: About half of all respondents believed that their approach to security will not return to pre-pandemic norms.  While 29% said that they expect a return to pre-covid operations at some point in the future and just 20% believed their situation has now returned to what it was.