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A new report from Bitdefender outlines pressure points at the cyber security coalface and a disconnect between workers and leadership.
A new survey of 1,200 cyber security professionals from around the world has found that 57 per cent of respondents have been pressured to remain silent in the wake of a data breach and not report the incident to authorities.
The worrying figure comes from Bitdefender’s 2025 Cybersecurity Assessment Report and is a serious jump from the 2023 report, where only 19 per cent of respondents said they felt pressured to stay quiet.
The survey’s respondents were evenly split between France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, the UK, and the US. Respondents from Singapore reported the most pressure, with 75 per cent of those polled reporting some level of pressure to stay quiet. Seventy-three per cent of US professionals reported similar pressure, while only 35 per cent of French cyber professionals said they had been told not to report a breach.
Forty-nine per cent of respondents said they felt that the skills gap within their business is getting worse, with a similar number reporting increased levels of burnout due to constant threat monitoring. In fact, half of the security professionals polled in the US and Singapore are planning to quit in the next 12 months.
Making the situation even worse, there appears to be a serious disconnect between those working on the frontlines and management. Despite the concerns of security professionals, 95 per cent of C-suite and senior executives feel they’re managing risk just fine.
One of the key concerns of most professionals is reducing the attack surface of their organisation. Sixty-seven per cent of those polled said they were disabling any application or tool that’s not entirely necessary. Cloud infrastructure and services were found to be the most attack-prone, followed by network infrastructure and user devices.
“Businesses face mounting challenges and pressures as the attack surface expands and becomes harder to defend – from hardening environments and optimising security solutions to navigating regulatory compliance and retaining skilled professionals,” Andrei Florescu, president and general manager of Bitdefender Business Solutions Group, said in a statement.
“The findings in this report make it clear that organisations must adopt modern security strategies that address a new reality where adversaries use AI to exploit vulnerabilities, sharpen social engineering, and accelerate the speed of attacks. Effective cyber security not only stops attacks but also continuously reduces risk and ensures ongoing compliance across the organisation.”
You can read the full 2025 Cybersecurity Assessment Report here.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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