Use of data analytics solutions is a growing trend across many areas, such as health care, marketing and retail. One of the latest areas to benefit, according to a recent survey, is business security. Nemertes Research published the results of a survey of more than 200 IT experts and found that many organizations have either implemented security analytics projects or are exploring the possibility of doing so.

Nearly one in four respondents said their companies are already using big data to enhance their security, 13.6 percent said they will begin doing so before the year is out and almost one fifth are in the planning stages, with many expected to begin implementation next year.

As TechTarget notes, this trend can be largely attributed to the recent rise in large-scale and highly publicized cyber attacks, some of which have cost high-ranking executives their jobs. Hackers’ methods are becoming more complex, so companies need to beef up their security measures as well. On the plus side, analytics tools are better equipped than ever to respond to these threats.

“Attacks are coming from all different directions, and you can’t really sit there and reverse engineer it and say, ‘This indicates an attack,'” said Nemertes CEO Johna Till Johnson. “But big data can do that for you.”

According to the survey, the main issue companies face when implementing these solutions is a lack of staff that has the sufficient knowledge of both data and security to carry out the task. A database management system can simplify analysis, using ETL tools to bring all the necessary security data together in one format, where it is easy to read and draw conclusions from.