Cybersecurity remains an investment priority, and small and medium businesses (SMBs) allocated $275,000 to cybersecurity while enterprises invested $14 million on average this year, according to the report by cyber security firm Kaspersky.
The share of IT budget dedicated to IT security continues to grow year-on-year, though the overall IT budget has fallen from $1.2 million in 2019 to $1.1 million in 2020 among SMBs, and from $74.1 million to $54.3 million for enterprises.
This decrease may be due to the consequences of the global coronavirus pandemic. Budgets would decrease earlier this year, according to Gartner.
The majority of companies are expecting these figures to grow in the next three years, by 11 percent in enterprises and 12 percent in SMBs.
Nearly 71 percent of organisations also expect their cybersecurity budget to grow further in the next three years.
“Though budgets get revised, it doesn’t mean cybersecurity needs to go down on the priority list. We recommend that businesses, who have to spend less on cybersecurity in the coming years, get smart about it and use every available option to bolster their defenses,” Alexander Moiseev, chief business officer at Kaspersky, said.
One in 10 organisations said they are going to spend less on IT security. The reason for this across enterprises is the deliberate decision of top management, who sees no point in investing so much money in cybersecurity in the future (32 percent).
External conditions and events can influence IT priorities for businesses.
As a result of the Covid-19 lockdown, organisations had to adjust plans to meet changing business needs – from emergency digitalisation to cost optimisation, said the report based on a survey of more than 5,000 IT and cybersecurity practitioners.
Among SMBs, the reason to reduce spend in this area is primarily dictated by the need to cut overall company expenses and optimize budgets (29 percent).
The SMBs were hit hardest by the lockdown — more than half of small companies globally reported a decline in sales or experienced cash flow constraints.
