Cybersecurity worries boost IT spending globally

Cybersecurity is a huge issue for companies. IT budgets are finally catching up with the new reality.


cybersecurityIn the early internet days IT departments had to fight for budget until companies realised how vital IT services were for existence, let alone operation.

In recent years the emphasis has moved to digital transformation and IT budgets have relatively stagnated. This, however, will change in 2017 and has probably already changed. The cybersecurity threat means that the enterprise sector has finally had to wake up to its responsibilities.

The accompanying infographic from Computer Nerds underscores how cybersecurity concerns are well-founded. According to the company, 26% of hard drives fail within the first four years and even three years ago, 90% of companies were reporting security breaches of their websites.

That threat has magnified in the ensuring three years. According to WordPress specialists Pragmatic Web, as soon as a NEW web site goes live, it will be attacked within SIX MINUTES of launch. If that sounds bad enough, think of older web sites and those that weren’t set up with cybersecurity as a focus.

Moreover, Computer Nerds says that 78% of companies in the private sector are worried about data security. When that figure reaches 100%, cybersecurity defences will be rooted in business consciousness and there may finally be strong defences to withstand constant breaches.

I attended a cybersecurity dinner at the House of Lords last year where after a few bottles of decent wine, the UK’s leading experts laid out their hands. The world has a global cybersecurity skills shortage of more than one million people and it will take at least half a generation to fix the mess of a vulnerable infrastructure.

That the internet is infected is no longer a question. It is beginning to resemble a festering sore that is not responding to the medieval leeches currently being used to treat it.

Hopefully, increased IT budgets will mean that forthcoming treatment will be more sophisticated than these leeches or the optimistic maggots that are currently being used.