This article is based on findings originally reported by itp.net and sourced from Fortinet’s 2018 Security Implications of Digital Transformation Survey.
Security Tops the List of Digital Transformation Concerns
Digital transformation (DX) promises faster delivery, greater agility, and improved customer experiences — but it also introduces a significantly expanded attack surface. According to Fortinet’s 2018 Security Implications of Digital Transformation Survey, 85% of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Chief Security Officers (CSOs) identified cybersecurity as the single biggest hurdle to properly implementing DX initiatives.
The independent survey polled more than 300 CISOs and CSOs at organisations with 2,500 or more employees worldwide. Its findings paint a clear picture: security concerns are not slowing enthusiasm for transformation — but they are complicating its execution.
How Far Along Is Digital Transformation?
The survey revealed that adoption is already widespread:
- 67% of respondents had already embarked on a formal digital transformation programme.
- 95% were at least trialling some form of DX solution.
Despite this momentum, readiness to secure those transformations significantly lags behind. 25% of respondents estimated their network infrastructure was not adequately protected against current security threats — a gap driven by expanding attack surfaces, growing threat volume and sophistication, and a persistent shortage of skilled security professionals.
Why DX Increases Cyber Risk
Digital transformation is not security-neutral. Several structural changes that accompany DX directly increase an organisation’s exposure:
- Endpoint proliferation: More devices — including IoT sensors, mobile endpoints, and cloud-connected workloads — mean more potential entry points for attackers.
- Distributed networks: Workloads shifting to multi-cloud and hybrid environments break down traditional perimeter-based security models.
- Data and traffic volume: Exponential growth in network traffic increases both the difficulty of monitoring and the value of data exposed in a breach.
- DevOps velocity: Rapid release cycles can introduce new vulnerabilities before security controls are applied.
- Regulatory pressure: Growing compliance requirements (GDPR and equivalents) add complexity to already strained security operations.
The Real-World Impact: Intrusions and Outages
The survey data also revealed the tangible cost of inadequate DX security. 20% of respondents reported suffering 20 or more cyber-attack-related intrusions in the preceding 24 months, with an average of four of those incidents resulting in outages, data loss, or compliance events.
These figures underscore that the threat is not theoretical. Organisations in the middle of transformation are actively experiencing attacks, and those without integrated security strategies are paying a measurable operational price.
Four Acute Cybersecurity Pain Points for DX
Alain Penel, Regional Vice President for the Middle East at Fortinet, highlighted four areas that represent the sharpest cybersecurity challenges for organisations undergoing DX:
- Cloud computing — particularly multi-cloud environments, where visibility and consistent policy enforcement are difficult to maintain.
- IoT — a rapidly growing category of devices that often lack built-in security controls.
- A burgeoning threat landscape — including polymorphic attacks and other advanced threats that evolve faster than traditional signature-based defences.
- Rising regulatory pressure — compliance obligations that demand centralised tracking, reporting, and audit trails across distributed infrastructure.
“The digital transformation or DX wave appears to be sweeping away everything that stands before it, and cybersecurity worries have emerged as a significant obstacle to the transformation process.”
— Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet
What the Most Secure Organisations Do Differently
The survey compared organisations that had not suffered a damaging incident in the prior two years against those that had been attacked multiple times. The most resilient organisations demonstrated a consistent set of behaviours. Compared to their peers, they were:
- 76% more likely to integrate security systems into a unified security architecture.
- 38% more likely to share threat intelligence across the organisation.
- 34% more likely to ensure security safeguards apply everywhere — on-premises, cloud, IoT, and mobile.
- 24% more likely to build in compliance controls for centralised tracking and reporting.
- 24% more likely to have automated more than half of their security practices.
- 20% more likely to have end-to-end visibility across all environments.
The pattern is consistent: holistic, integrated security strategies outperform siloed, reactive ones — especially as the attack surface expands with each new DX initiative.
Security Transformation Must Keep Pace with Digital Transformation
The core takeaway from the Fortinet research is not that organisations should slow their digital transformation programmes — it is that security transformation must advance in lockstep with them. Penel summarised the imperative clearly:
“Holistic and integrated security strategies are more effective than siloed, reactive ones. A strategic approach becomes increasingly important as an organisation’s attack surface increases with the proliferation of devices… A comprehensive strategy that unifies IT tools and processes across all parts of the network is necessary for addressing advanced threats such as polymorphic attacks, as well as new vulnerabilities that sneak in because of DevOps.”
— Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet
For DevOps and platform engineering teams, this translates into concrete practices: embedding security controls in CI/CD pipelines (DevSecOps), enforcing consistent policy across cloud and on-premises environments, automating threat detection and response, and sharing intelligence across team and tool boundaries rather than treating security as a gate at the end of the delivery cycle.
Key Takeaways for Engineering and Security Leaders
- Security is the top-ranked barrier to digital transformation, cited by 85% of CISOs and CSOs.
- 25% of organisations do not believe their infrastructure is adequately protected, even as they push ahead with DX.
- Cloud (especially multi-cloud), IoT, advanced threats, and regulatory compliance are the four dominant pain points.
- Integrated, automated, and end-to-end security architectures are the strongest differentiator between organisations that withstand attacks and those that suffer damaging incidents.
- Security must be planned, architected, and funded as part of every DX initiative — not bolted on after the fact.