When it comes to preventing cybercrime, it is not necessarily about the amount of investment in cybersecurity a company makes. Instead, it is about how well the organization is spending those funds.
Cybercrime is costing businesses more than $1 trillion per year. This figure includes monetary losses of more than $900 billion, and it also includes the costs of cybersecurity services – approximately $145 billion.
As a way of balancing the difference between loss and expenditure, spending on cybersecurity will undoubtedly rise again in 2021. Companies of all types and sizes are increasing their security budgets – often by as much as 10 percent. Yet how they are approaching spending has changed.
Organizations are increasingly fearful about breaches of cybersecurity. This has led to risk management and compliance teams taking a more central role. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have had to rethink their priorities regarding cybersecurity investment. As cloud services have come to the forefront, there is now a stronger push for cloud security solutions.
Increased attacks on the supply chain have also increased the intensity of focus on risk assessments for third-party suppliers. Meanwhile, data privacy trends have changed their focus towards investments in data protection-centered Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions.
Despite the changes in cybersecurity trends, many companies still rely on and invest in legacy systems and tools. These organizations may be increasing the amount they spend on cybersecurity. Yet, they are still underinvesting in the essential solutions required to meet today’s landscape of threats.
Regardless of Expenditure, Attacks Will Take Place
Like IT, cybersecurity is a vital cost for companies. But it still makes sense that companies want to save money by limiting cybersecurity efforts only to the essential minimum. Companies are all too aware that they can spend a fortune on cybersecurity and still receive diminishing returns. Therefore, getting the balance right is imperative.
Nevertheless, in terms of actual spending, a company’s cybersecurity budget primarily goes toward the minimum of maintaining compliance. Government and industry regulations are continually changing to meet the evolutionary nature of attacks. Yet, even with the most effective training and technology in place, successful attacks will take advantage of human errors. No amount of spending can combat this.
Busting the Myths of Cybersecurity Spending
One of the biggest cybersecurity myths is that the more you spend, the more protected you are. Instead, the most critical factor is spending the money wisely.
For example, a critical overlook cost of cybersecurity is defending against security threats that no longer exist. Physical storage theft was once an issue when centralized data centers were in their early days. This is no longer a prevalent issue, and yet the large budget allocation still persists.
There have also been numerous trends in recent years that have led to increased spending on security. Migration into the cloud has driven a move from capital expenditure linked to physical systems toward expense-based spending. Increased ransomware attacks have also led insurers to change their focus to endpoint security, business continuity, and cloud storage security. Understaffed organizations have also leaned toward the engagement of consultants or even the outsourcing of full capabilities.
These trends support the use of risk reviews and regular vulnerability testing to provide management with the information they need to target their cybersecurity spending on the areas of greatest exposure and deliver the biggest bang for their cybersecurity buck.
For questions about Windes Cybersecurity services, please call 844.4WINDES (844.494.6337) or email us at advisory@windes.com.