April 21, 2022 | By stephen

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4 Reasons to Never Cut Corners With Cybersecurity

• Cybersecurity

Information Technology is no longer a luxury; it’s do-or-die for the 21st-century business. We live in the information age where organizations rely on IT to enhance business agility, make crucial decisions, formulate policies, and automate processes. We could almost say all modern-day businesses are IT businesses. How well you’re using IT can give you a competitive edge or set you a foot behind your competitors.

As IT becomes an integral part of business operations, we cannot afford to overlook the accompanying cybersecurity concern. According to Accenture, 68% of business leaders believe that their cybersecurity risks are increasing daily. Let’s face it—data breaches are here to stay and are aggravating by the day.

Check out our video where we discuss investing in IT: Does Your CFO Budget For Ransomware?

Top 4 Reasons Why Cybersecurity Is a Good Investment

If you’ve been monitoring the global cybersecurity situation for some time, you may know that we are far from winning the war against cybercrime. The bad guys have continually shown us they can always find better and more lethal ways to infiltrate corporate systems. And with each success, the costs of breaches spike. Here’s why every business leader must prioritize cybersecurity in their IT budgets:

1. More than half of SMBs die within half a year after a cyberattack: Cision PR Newswire approximates SMBs account for up to 76% of data breaches in the U.S. Out of these, over 60% close shop within six months of the attack.
2. Data breaches are costly: While you may imagine that investing in data security is expensive, the opposite is true. Not having a cybersecurity budget exposes you to cyberattacks, which can be up to ten times more costly. For instance, IBM estimates the average cost of one breach incident to be $3.86 million, a fraction of which is enough to fund your entire IT budget.
3. Cyberattacks are continually increasing: A week barely passes before a cyber incident becomes a forefront topic in news outlets. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, ABC News reported that data breaches soared by over 600%. While we could blame this on the prevailing circumstances, the situation is not any different today. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, actors launch a new ransomware attempt on U.S. businesses every 11 seconds. The risks are greater than ever before.
4. There’s an increase in supply chain attacks: If you thought your organization was safer because it’s smaller, you’re wrong. Cyber actors do not discriminate based on size; they only care about the ease of infiltration and making money. And now, with the increase in supply chain attacks where the hackers compromise several companies simultaneously, the risks are higher.

What do all these numbers mean for your Chicagoland business?

Prevention is the best recourse. You can either wait and bear the wrath of a cyberattack because you can be sure one is coming or invest in proactively averting them. The choice is yours. Any reasonable business owner or leader will go with the latter because it’s the safer option.

4 Important Areas To Spend Your Cybersecurity Budget

Now that you understand why it’s essential to have a cybersecurity budget let’s look at what to include. As we always say, the secret to proper cybersecurity is covering the basics. We are not against investing in sophisticated intrusion detection and prevention systems and technologies. No. But even as you budget for these, do not forget the essentials:

1. Maintaining Resilient Backups

You never know when the bad guys will strike. But if they do, you should have easy-to-retrieve copies of your crucial files and credentials. Backups should be segmented, safe from ransomware that destroys servers. You can sustain normal operations with the backups as you look for a permanent solution. Therefore, budget for backing up your data at least twice or thrice a day. The other advantage of backups is that they relieve you of the pressure of hurriedly paying hefty ransoms to avert downtimes and business interruptions.

2. Regularly Patching and Updating Your Systems

Cybersecurity software developers should always monitor emerging threats and release updates and patches in response. Installing these updates ensures that you have the latest security features and enhances your posture.

3. Monitoring Your Network 24/7

Round-the-clock systems monitoring may seem expensive and unjustified, but it’s effective. If you don’t have enough workforce to monitor your network 24/7, you can budget for a co-managed IT arrangement to handle this and other labor-intensive manual tasks. The earlier you spot threats in your business environment, the faster you can remove them and prevent further damage.

4. Training Your Staff On Cybersecurity Awareness

We should have probably started with this one. Studies by Cybinit show that proper staff cyber awareness training can prevent up to 9 out of 10 data breaches. Allocate money to occasionally retrain your employees on threat identification, prevention, and fast-response protocols. If the budget allows, you can also occasionally simulate attacks to test their preparedness.

LeadingIT offers 24/7, all-inclusive, fast, and friendly technology and cybersecurity support for nonprofits, manufacturers, schools, accounting firms, religious organizations, government, and law offices with 10-200 employees across the Chicagoland area.