Cyber security has emerged as one of the major threats faced by businesses today. In 2014, it was estimated that large businesses spent an average of $10.8 million on cyber security. While too much has been talked about the impact of cyber threats on businesses, it is clear that small businesses cannot afford to spend this kind of money for cyber security (i.e. $10.8 billion)– no matter even if it’s true that cyber threats can actually go on to cripple organizations. It is difficult to adjudge the correct amount of money that should be spent on cyber security—simply because you cannot measure the Return of Investment here. You should invest in cyber security knowing full well that you are purchasing something to prevent something which might or might not happen in the future. However, it’s the same case with fire insurance as well. Companies, in general, will not mind spending thousands of dollars on insurance. So, there is actually no justification for not considering investments in cyber security at all.
Cyber Security Market: Estimating its future worth and More
As per a report published by MarketsandMarkets in the previous year, the cyber security market is well poised to expand to $155.74 billion by 2019 – thanks to the most obvious innovations including cloud-based services and wireless communication. While small businesses cannot really afford to spend so much on cyber security, it does not really mean the end of the road for them. It is very important to ensure that they have the due expertise to recover data. Needless to mention, besides human expertise, these companies should also have the right technological resources to recover data. Companies, according to Working Links CIO, Omid Shirazi, should have the right crisis management and business continuity processes.
Combating cyber threats without a huge amount of money
In short, you can combat breaches of data even without having a substantial budget for the same. So, instead of concentrating on ways to increase your cyber security budget, make sure you have an effective recovery plan in place whereby you can actually go on to respond to breaches of data quickly. You need to have key contacts within your enterprise including the media response, RTO/RPO, and crisis communication teams.
As far as the investments in cyber security are concerned, businesses should be able to strike the right balance between funds and preparedness (to respond to possible cyber-attacks). What we mean to say is that one should not give up all hopes of protecting one’s data simply because the company does not have the required budget to deal with cyber threats. We have already mentioned how you can deal with cyber threats even without a great budget. So, keep these points in view.
Leave a Reply