With fears of a recession looming, many companies are looking for ways to reduce spending. Cybersecurity is an area where it can be tempting to cut costs as it doesn’t directly contribute to the bottom line. However, there are several reasons why cybersecurity should be considered a ‘need-to-have’ rather than a ‘nice-to-have’ during difficult economic times.
Cyberattacks have been known to increase during economic downturns
If you’re feeling the pinch, so are the cybercriminals and it’s not uncommon that attacks increase during these times. According to FBI reports, online crime increased during the 2008-2009 recession, and further increased 40% in the following two years. It’s therefore likely that criminals will try to take advantage of future recessions. And this is partly because they know that cybersecurity budgets are likely to be cut. Additionally, they can also take advantage of individuals within companies who are vulnerable to financial difficulties by turning them into insider threats with financial incentives.
Reducing cybersecurity budgets now can cost you in the long term
Whilst it might seem like a quick way to slash costs now it comes with a risk. The global average cost of a data breach is $4.35m and this number continues to increase year on year. In addition, there can be legal implications of not securely storing company data. This can result not only in fines from regulators – as CapitalOne and WhatsApp found out – but also reputational damage.
Cutting costs can exacerbate the cyber skills gap
Reducing the budget of cybersecurity teams is going to have an impact on training. In an industry where technology develops fast and cybercriminals are rapidly becoming more sophisticated with their attacks, it won’t take long for expertise to fall behind. Whilst there is technology available to help monitoring threats, it often requires specialist skills to interpret and analyse. Failing to keep up to speed with cybersecurity knowledge now will have an impact on future security of your business.
But for companies who do prioritise spending on cybersecurity, they are likely to gain a competitive advantage as customers are increasingly valuing privacy and security of their data. As a result, they will likely choose to work with companies who can fulfil this requirement.