Despite the growth in data breaches, senior executives at US firms think their cybersecurity protection is top-notch, according to a new survey conducted by research and consultancy firm Ovum for Silicon Valley analytics firm FICO.  68 percent of executives from US firms said their firm was better prepared than their competitors, and 37 percent said their firm was a top performer.

FICO will host a Tweet Chat on this survey, July 19th at 11.00 am Eastern Time, 8:00 am Pacific Time, 4:00 pm UK Time. Use #cybertrends to follow the discussion.

Among U.S. industries, power and utilities providers were the most confident of all — 86 percent said their firm was a top performer or better than average. Telecommunications providers were second, with 72 percent saying their firm was top or better than average for cyber-readiness. The least confident — or most realistic — respondents were in financial services, where 60 percent reported their firm being a top industry performer or better than average.

Despite this, only 44 percent of telecommunications providers believe their firm's cybersecurity position will improve in a year's time. In fact, the same percentage of respondents believes their firm's position will remain the same, showing a lack of confidence in their firm keeping up with the latest cybersecurity threats.

"Firms have a lot to lose when it comes to their privacy and security risk and must have an accurate picture of how protected they really are," said Doug Clare, vice president for cybersecurity solutions at FICO. "These figures point to the fact that many firms don't know how they compare against to their competitors, which could lead to an under-investment in cybersecurity protection. Based on the survey results, many organizations would be surprised by what an objective view from the FICO Enterprise Security Score could tell them about their relative levels of cyber risk."

"IT leaders have greater funding than ever to protect organizations from the continuously evolving threat landscape and meet complex compliance demands," said Maxine Holt, research director at Ovum. "These same IT leaders are undoubtedly keen to believe that the money being spent provides their organization with a better security posture than any other – but the rapid pace of investment, often in point solutions, rarely takes an organization-wide view of security."

Ovum conducted the survey for FICO through telephone interviews with 500 senior executives, mostly from the IT function, in businesses from the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Finland, Norway, Sweden and South Africa. Respondents represented firms in financial services, telecommunications, retail and ecommerce, and power and utilities.