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One in three targeted attempts to breach corporations’ cyber defenses succeed, according to Accenture, which surveyed 2,000 executives from 12 industries and 15 countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Despite that “alarmingly high” failure rate,75% of executives remain unaccountably confident in their security strategies.

“On average, an organization will face more than a hundred focused and targeted breach attempts every year, and respondents say one in three of these will result in a successful security breach,” according to Building Confidence: Facing the Cybersecurity Conundrum. “That’s two to three effective attacks per month.”

CONFIDENCE LACKING.     Even though more than half of the survey’s respondents say internal breaches cause the most damage, 2/3’s say they lack confidence in their organization’s ability to monitor internal threats and the majority continue to focus on defense against external attackers.

“Cyberattacks are a constant operational reality across every industry today and our survey reveals that catching criminal behavior requires more than the best practices and perspectives of the past,” Kevin Richards, managing director of Accenture Security, North America, said in a statement accompanying the report. “There needs to be a fundamentally different approach to security protection starting with identifying and prioritizing key company assets across the entire value chain.”

REBOOT NEEDED.     “To survive in this contradictory and increasingly risky landscape, organizations need to reboot their approaches to cybersecurity. “Ultimately, many remain unsure of their ability to manage the internal threats with the greatest cybersecurity impact even as they continue to prioritize external initiatives that produce the lowest return on investment.”

There is still too much emphasis on compliance, the authors conclude: “Just as adhering to generally accepted accounting principles does not ensure protection against financial fraud, cybersecurity compliance alone will not protect a company from successful incursions.”