How can you justify a cybersecurity budget? How do you know where to best invest your money so that you get the most bang for your buck? The best way to answer these questions is to step back and identify your biggest risks and what impact these threats can have on your organization.
Human Error: By far the largest threat to your organization is the intentional (insider threat) and unintentional (social engineering) user interaction. Disclosures of data, malware exposure, and money transfers all expose your organization to fines, recovery costs and reputation issues. Human error accounts for about 27 percent of data breaches and can take months to uncover and reconcile. End user education and monitoring is a vital component to every institution.
Malware/Ransomware: Malicious software such as viruses, keyloggers, crypto mining and spyware can have an impact on your infrastructure. These can bring your systems to a halt and business is unable to continue. Without the proper defenses in place, malware can cause disruptions that quickly add up when including system down times, lost or damaged data, patching and replacing systems. Ransomware attacks alone cost businesses over $11 billion by 2019.
End of Life Hardware and Software: IT professionals can sometimes fall into the thought process that if the hardware and software is still functional that there is little risk involved. Many times there is no plan for upgrades, patching and replacements. Change management needs to be a part of every IT budget.
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