UK businesses struggle with security budgets as cyber incidents increase
UK businesses have experienced on average 30 cyber incidents over the last twelve months, marking a 25 percent increase compared to last year.
But a new report from iomart and Oxford Economics finds that 27 percent of organizations think their cyber security budget is inadequate to fully protect them from growing threats. This is despite spending more than £40,000 ($48,000) a year on cyber protection such as vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and red team engagements.
The rising cost of cyber insurance premiums is one of the biggest financial outlays, with 70 percent of businesses noting a rise over the last two years.
With the cost of remediation and other businesses expenses, such as energy, on the rise, stretched budgets are causing blind spots in businesses' cyber strategies. Only 37 percent of respondents say they have security embedded into all their business processes and functions, while 14 percent admit that security is only addressed on an ad hoc or as-needed basis. Meanwhile during the COVID-19 pandemic, 41 percent of organizations say they were forced to sacrifice cyber security to keep the lights on.
Lucy Dimes CEO at iomart says:
Our latest security report with Oxford Economics is a temperature check on the cyber challenges businesses face. It is clear the threat of cybercrime is rising, but there's a lack of confidence in organizations' abilities to protect themselves against it.
There are many factors at play that are influencing this, from rising energy costs and increased insurance premiums to skills shortages and staff burnout, which are causing huge challenges for businesses.
Despite the challenges they face, businesses are optimistic about the role of nascent technologies such as AI and ML. 38 percent of businesses believe the use of AI and ML will be a major trend in cyber security over the next two years, particularly to support with email screening (78 percent) and contextual analytics (69 percent).
You can get the State of cyber security in the UK 2023 report from the iomart site.
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