Enterprises doing “good, but not great” when it comes to implementing digital trust,
according to annual State of Digital Trust survey.
DigiCert, Inc., a leading global provider of digital trust, released its 2024 State of Digital Trust
Survey in APAC that checks in on how enterprises around the world are managing digital trust
in their organizations. While digital trust overwhelmingly remains a critical focus for all enterprises,
the latest report shines a light on the growing divide between the ‘leaders’ — those who are
getting it right, and the ‘laggards’ — those who are struggling.
The difference between leaders and laggards revealed some clues and potential best practices
when it comes to digital trust. The top 33% digital trust ‘leaders’ enjoyed higher revenue, better
digital innovation and higher employee productivity. They could respond more effectively to
outages and incidents, were generally better prepared for Post Quantum Cryptography and
were more readily taking advantage of the benefits of the IoT. Meanwhile, the bottom 33%
‘laggards’ performed comparatively poorly in all those categories and found it harder to reap the
benefits of digital innovation. In addition, the leaders were more likely to centrally manage their
certificates, more likely to employ email authentication and encryption (S/MIME) technology,
and generally employed more mature practices in digital trust management.
The 2024 survey included a series of questions to determine how well (or poorly) each
respondent was doing across a wide range of digital trust metrics. After the scores were totaled,
the respondents were split into three groups: leaders, laggards, and those in the middle.
Comparing the results between leaders, laggards, and those in the middle, notable differences
emerged:
* Leaders exhibit far fewer issues on core enterprise systems (no system outages,
few data breaches, and no compliance or legal issues) and experienced no IoT
compliance issues, whereas half (50%) of the laggards did so. Leaders also have
significantly fewer issues due to software trust mishaps–for example, none of the
leaders experienced compliance issues or software supply chain compromises,
compared to 23% and 77% of the laggards, respectively.
Key highlights from APAC include:
In the Asia Pacific region specifically, 83% of the leaders did not have compliance issues versus
80% of the laggards. Similarly, 67% of leaders didn’t experience software supply chain
compromises versus 20% of the laggards.
The survey unveiled that APAC organizations prioritizing digital trust are better poised to
confront the imminent threat of quantum computing. 56% of leaders are prepared for Post
Quantum Computing, a stark contrast to the 7% among laggards. Furthermore, 88% of leaders
anticipate being ready to tackle this threat within 1 to 3 years, compared to only 34% of laggards
confident about achieving preparedness within the same timeframe.
The survey underscores a strong focus on digital trust among organizations in the APAC region.
Key drivers include the surge in remote workers and increasing customer demand for digital
trust. Other factors include the growing significance of data and the expanding threat landscape.
“In the Asia Pacific region, digital trust is not merely a trend but a fundamental requirement in
today’s evolving landscape,” said Armando Dacal, Group Vice President APJ at DigiCert.
“Our survey findings underscore the crucial role of digital trust in driving organizational success,
with leaders demonstrating superior performance across key metrics. To thrive in this dynamic
environment, enterprises must prioritize digital trust as a strategic imperative.”
“As the threat landscape continues to expand, so does the gap between organizations who are
leading the way in digital trust and those who are falling behind,” said Jason Sabin, CTO at
DigiCert. “Those who fall within the ‘leaders’ group and those who are a ‘laggard’ are well
aware of who they are. The danger, however, is those organizations who fall in the middle and
are not taking action due to a false sense of security.”
“For organizations to be champions of digital trust, they must understand and actively implement
the structure, processes, and activities that make it possible,” coomented Jennifer Glenn, Research
Director, Security and Trust Group, IDC. “This includes keeping up with changes to industry
standards, maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements in each geography, managing
the life cycle of digital trust technologies, and extending trust into digital ecosystems.
Companies that focus their efforts on digital trust — and make it a strategic imperative for the
business — the benefits are notable, including reliable uptime, reduced risk of data
compromise, and improved user trust.”
Research Methodology
Dallas-based Eleven Research administered the survey to 300 IT, Information Security and
DevOps senior and C-level managers from enterprises with 1,000 or more employees in North
America, Europe, and APAC.