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Although cybersecurity has always been an important factor in business budgets, there’s now more need than ever to invest in security. Cybersecurity may even be more critical now, as hackers have been taking advantage of organizations hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the economic impact could actually result in lower security budgets.
Of course, CIOs would prefer to pay for as much cybersecurity as possible, but in reality, they need to figure out how to do more with a smaller budget.
Often, cybersecurity is seen as a siloed issue, where the perception is that the best approach is to pay for as much as possible. However, this is an unsustainable way to protect your online assets. Instead, businesses should optimize their cybersecurity based on risk, cost, and value.
It is also important to note that underinvesting in cybersecurity is not a practical way to optimise risk. It may keep IT costs low, but if you knowingly underinvest and then your business falls victim to cyber attack, the consequences could be extremely damaging.
In order to optimize your investment in cybersecurity, there are several steps you need to take. Read on to find out how to assess risk and optimize your cybersecurity spend.
Optimizing your cybersecurity spend
To optimize your cybersecurity spend, you’ll need to understand which of your business units are at the most risk of a cyberattack, how important it is for your business to protect those units, and how much you would need to spend to do so.
It is important to assess the risk in a way that is both consensus-building and quantitative to support credible and defensible decision-making. This might sound difficult, but with the right assessment tools, you can make accurate assessments based on real threat intelligence, and present it in a way that helps make that risk tangible for your business.
Once you have assessed the risks, it is time to make risk-appropriate decisions about which investments you need to prioritise. These decisions must have defensibility and credibility with key stakeholders, and be informed by:
- Known levels of cybersecurity risk within your business
- Choices to address this risk
- The needs of key stakeholders
The first step in deciding which investments to prioritise is assessing the risk.
It is important to assess the risk in a way that is both consensus-building and quantitative in order to support credible and defensible decision-making. This might sound complex, but with the right assessment tools, you can make accurate assessments based on real threat intelligence, and present it in a way that helps make that risk tangible for your business.
Once you’ve worked out your security budget based on real risks, you need to consider whether it looks credible and defensible; are you spending enough to justify that your high-value business units are protected? If this isn’t the case, you will need to talk to the board about increasing your cybersecurity budget.
Learn more about optimizing risk, value and cost in cybersecurity
Making decisions about security investments is very difficult, and investments can be hard to justify. Gartner’s risk, value, and cost model act as a compass that will help you make important investment decisions.
To find out more, download their paper today.
