Why You Need a Cybersecurity Compliance Budget
Cybersecurity threats continue to rise in 2018, creating huge potential liability. Learn why you absolutely must have a cybersecurty compliance budget in place.
Are you considering a cybersecurity compliance budget?
These budgets are growing and more employees are being allocated to IT security than ever. In fact, cybersecurity spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2021.
With security threats on the rise, even small businesses need to defend themselves.
Want to learn more? Read on to discover why you need a budget to protect yourself.
Cost
Understanding cyber risk requires an understanding of how business assets are impacted by an inevitable attack. Prioritization is key.
Systems that cost you money in fines if breached are different than a system that minimally impacts your business. Research into the potential financial risk provides cyber insurance companies an advantage in finding a plan that’s best for you.
Budgets
Because of the large expense, management may have difficulty believing there will be a significant ROI. However, it can be easier to see the benefit of cybersecurity compliance investments if they have a direct impact on customer purchases or other income sources.
If you are negotiating cybersecurity budgets for your company, frame your argument around two principles. First, determine a quantifiable budget, then follow it with a well-researched case for why the company needs it.
Potential Damage
The significant risk that most managers forget is the ripple effect an attack will have. Ransomware, by far, is the most prevalent.
This malware variant can encrypt data on a single computer and sometimes an entire network. If it’s allowed to get out of hand, all of your digital information will become unavailable.
Without access to these tools, employees must sit and wait. You will hemorrhage money the longer it takes to fix.
According to a study by Intermedia, almost 75% of respondents were unable to access important files for 48 hours following their attack. If you wish to budget for cybersecurity compliance, leave space for large and secure data backup systems.
Compliance and Recovery
One of the first steps in creating a budget is to determine and distinguish compliance and recovery.
Compliance costs are typically preventative expenses. They’re associated with such measures as firewalls, software investments, and training programs.
Alternatively, recovery costs include all final damages from a breach. It includes theft, ransom, and reputation recovery.
Budgeting for attacks is difficult and the precise cost for you depends on multiple variables. As a planned cost, compliance is the preferred choice. It’s also cheaper.
Audit
Conducting a security audit should occur before allocating any resources to security measures. It will help you in determining what your focus should be.
Audits allow the understanding of primary vulnerabilities. For example, if you find that most employees fail to use VPNs outside of the office, you can create a budget to address network access issues.
Are You Ready to Implement a Cybersecurity Compliance Budget?
It may be extremely difficult to determine the need and convince upper management to allocate for it, but if you can prove the peace of mind it gives – and the comfort in executives’ wallets – you can get it established.
If you’re unsure where to begin, start with us. Pegasus Technologies was named one of the 2018 tech elite solution providers by CRN(R).
Feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or would like to inquire about our services.
