Companies will increase IT security budgets by up to 9% over the next two years

Companies are planning to increase their investments in information security due to the increasing financial losses due to cyber incidents. This trend is presented in Kaspersky’s latest IT Security Economics report.

Kaspersky IT Security Economics is an annual report that analyzes changes in budgets, security incidents and business challenges affecting IT security decision makers. It is based on conversations with IT and IT security experts who work in organizations of various sizes and industries. The research was conducted in 27 countries in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, as well as Latin and North America.

According to the survey, companies plan to increase IT security budgets by up to 9%. The media budget for cyber security of large companies amounted to 5.7 million dollars, while 41.8 million dollars were allocated for the entire IT. Small and medium-sized enterprises invested $0.2 million in IT security from the average IT budget of $1.6 million.

Possible reasons for increased investment can be found in the analysis of financial losses due to cyber incidents. Large enterprises recorded an average of 12 incidents this year and spent $6.2 million to recover from them, which is 1.1 times more than the total budget for IT security. Despite greater resources and advanced security infrastructure, the size and complexity of large organizations make them more vulnerable to costly intrusions. While these enterprises are often better equipped to quickly detect incidents, the time required to fully respond and mitigate threats can be hours, highlighting the challenges of managing widespread and complex IT environments.

As for small and medium-sized enterprises, they experienced an average of 16 incidents this year, while spending $0.3 million on remediation, which is 1.5 times more than their total IT security budget. SMEs are the group with the largest disproportion in terms of budgetary impact. They often lack strong cybersecurity policies and procedures, leaving them vulnerable to employee-related incidents, public cloud misconfigurations, and high-level permissions.

“This data illustrates the continuation of the current trend of increasing costs for cyber security across all market segments. This growth is driven by at least three key factors. First and most obvious, the constant growth in the complexity of cyber security threats is forcing companies to adopt more advanced solutions to improve detection of attack traces and automate responses. Secondly, the increasing concern of the authorities about digital sovereignty leads to the emergence of new regulations and regulatory requirements, which results in an increase in costs. The third factor affecting the growth of the budget and expenses for cyber security is the constant increase in expected salaries for experts in various areas of cyber security,” says Veniamin Levtsov, vice president of the Center for Corporate Business Expertise at Kaspersky.

In order to protect companies from a wide range of cyber threats, Kaspersky recommends:

• Use comprehensive solutions from Kaspersky Next product lines that provide real-time protection, threat visibility, advanced research and response capabilities for companies of all sizes and industries. Depending on current needs and available resources, companies can choose the most relevant product tier and easily switch to another if their cybersecurity needs change.
• Activate a managed security service such as Kaspersky Managed Detection and Responsein case the company does not have qualified InfoSec experts. This will provide the necessary expertise and enable the best possible advanced automated security services. Thanks to the analysis of corporate data collected every day in real time, the company can protect itself from sophisticated cyber attacks.

For more information on costs and budgets for IT security in companies, visit the interactive IT Security Calculator. To read the full IT Security Economics report, visit website.