Security operations platform ThreatQuotient, has unveiled its 2023 State of Cybersecurity Automation Adoption research report.

The report draws insights from a survey of 750 senior cybersecurity professionals across the UK, US, and Australia, the report sheds light on the evolving landscape of cybersecurity automation in today’s enterprises.

The survey’s key findings underscore the growing significance of automation in cybersecurity, with 75% of respondents expressing its importance — a notable increase from 68% in the previous year.

The also report reveals a substantial uptick in the automation of key areas, notably in alert triage (30%, up from 18% in 2022) and vulnerability management (a 5% increase). Phishing analysis emerges as the most prevalent use case for automation, adopted by 31% of respondents in 2023.

However, the report also highlights challenges faced by organisations implementing cybersecurity automation. The top three issues identified by survey participants include a lack of trust in outcomes, slow user adoption, and erroneous decisions, such as mistakenly blocking benign domain names or innocent emails.

Interestingly, the study indicates a shift in how cybersecurity professionals measure return on investment (ROI) for automation projects. Employee satisfaction and retention have become the primary metrics for over 60% of leaders, surpassing traditional measures like security performance. This shift emphasises the need for automation to enhance the overall employee experience by streamlining tasks and allowing cybersecurity teams to focus on more engaging and meaningful work.

Despite the recognition of the importance of cybersecurity automation, respondents reported encountering problems, with all but one expressing dissatisfaction. The report suggests that these challenges may stem from early adoption of solutions that failed to deliver on their potential and lacked integration capabilities.

Leon Ward, vice president of product management at ThreatQuotient, notes, “There are proven use cases for automation, and we believe the main barriers encountered are due to early adoption of solutions that didn’t deliver on their potential and had a lack of integration capabilities.”

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In terms of budget allocation for automation projects, the report reveals a shift, with only 18.5% having new budget allocations this year, down from 34% in the previous year. Moreover, 57% are reallocating budget from outside the team, while 46% have increased it by reallocating budgets from other tools.

As organisations consider cybersecurity automation solutions, their wish list includes integration with multiple data sources (24%), training availability (23%), and automated reporting (21%).

Ward emphasises, “With ROI measured on the basis of team satisfaction and retention, vendors need to incorporate the human benefits of their solution into product design and messaging.”