Woburn, MA – February 8, 2023 – According to latest edition of Kaspersky’s annual IT Security Economics report, the increased complexity of IT infrastructure, improving the level of specialist security expertise and geopolitical or economic uncertainty are the main factors driving cyber security spending for companies of all sizes.
A PWC study states the heightened interest of business in cybersecurity caused by the increased use of digital technologies and ever-evolving threat landscape has already resulted in improvements in IT security. To explore how much businesses currently spend on this crucial field and what their plans for further investments are, Kaspersky conducted 3,230 interviews across 26 countries from businesses with more than 50 employees.
The poll suggests that IT budgets for cybersecurity are set to increase again over the next three years for both SMBs and enterprises to cover a range of issues. The median IT security budget for North American SMBs was $350k versus $3.7M for enterprises in 2022.
Among the reasons to increase IT security budgets in the U.S. and Canada, respondents especially noted the complexity of the IT infrastructure (60% for SMB and 55% for enterprise), and a need to improve the level of specialist security expertise (40% for SMB and 42% for enterprise). New potential risks occurring due to increased geopolitical or economic uncertainty were also highlighted as reasons for investment increases (40% for SMB and 33% for enterprises).
The additional budgeting will ideally help companies address most concerning issues related to IT security. This year, nearly half (47%) of companies consider issues with data protection to be the most challenging. The second most important concern was the cost of securing increasingly complex technological environments (44%), while issues with inadequate planning followed (36%).
“Business continuity is ever depending on information security. Nowadays when infrastructure becomes more complex and cyber-attacks become more sophisticated, businesses are becoming more cyber aware and better understand the need for protecting every asset inside the organization,” comments Ivan Vassunov, vice president of corporate products at Kaspersky. “State regulations is another important factor influencing the growing budgets for information security. These organizations require businesses to keep their operations and data secure. Sometimes regulators tighten rules for the whole vertical market or industry.”
To learn more insights about IT security costs and budgets in businesses in 2022 visit the interactive Kaspersky IT Security Calculator. The full report “IT Security Economics 2022” is available to download here.
About Kaspersky
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelli-gence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at usa.kaspersky.com.
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Cassandra Faro
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