Technology vendors and service providers that proactively root out, mitigate, and disclose cyberthreats are in high demand and short supply, according to a Ponemon Institute survey conducted on behalf of Intel. And even when vulnerabilities are disclosed, respondents cited numerous challenges ranging from limited IT budgets to user error.

The report surveyed 1,875 individuals in the U.S., United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America directly involved in overseeing IT security infrastructure.

The goal of the survey was to identify what customers care about and what they expect and require when it comes to security, Suzy Greenberg, VP of Intel product assurance and security explained, adding that transparency has been a “key focus for Intel for decades.”

This has manifested in various forms including Intel’s annual vulnerability report, its bug bounty program, and the company’s security development lifecycle, which seeks to ensure that products are supported long after they reach the customer.

And according to the survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents want to see similar efforts from more of their technology partners.

“In the world of IT security and other related fields, this issue of transparency is increasingly important,” Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute, said.

To this end, 73% of those surveyed said they were more likely to purchase technologies and services from companies with a track record of transparency, but just 46% said their current provider was capable of doing so.

“If you’re not finding vulnerabilities, if you’re only seeing a few from other companies, it’s pretty sure that you’re just not looking hard enough,” Greenberg said. “We try to be an industry leader in that regard and work with other companies, partners, and competitors to ensure that they’re putting those same processes in place.”

“It’s really important as an entire industry that we’re focusing on this together, and that we’re working together on it,” she added.

Beyond a desire for greater transparency and support across the industry, the survey also found strong demand for hardware-accelerated security capabilities to mitigate software exploits, with 72% saying that it was important for technology providers to offer mechanisms to protect distributed workloads. Respondents also showed a preference for vendors that employ ethical hackers to stress test their systems.

While security and transparency is in high demand, the survey found several barriers to adoption. These included interoperability (63%), installation costs (58%), system complexity (57%), vendor support hurdles (55%), and issues with scalability (53%).

More than 80% of respondents said their IT budget was also a limiting factor to achieving a stronger security posture within the organization. This shortfall was evident in the speed at which those surveyed claimed they were able to patch vulnerabilities once they were disclosed.

Roughly 30% of respondents said they were able to patch critical or high-priority vulnerabilities in less than a week, but on average, organizations took upwards of six weeks to apply patches.

These delays were the result of human error (63%), the inability to take applications or systems offline to apply a patch (58%), or not having adequate visibility of affected systems across the organization (52%), the report found. What’s more, the survey found 36% of organizations scanned for vulnerabilities less than once a month.

According to Intel, the findings of the report signal that specific vendor characteristics, such as transparency, have a pronounced impact on purchase decisions.