77% of organizations expect to increase cybersecurity budget as attacks rise: Verizon Business study

Over three-quarters (77%) of organizations expect to increase their cybersecurity budget again in the next 12 months on the back of rising cyberattacks which have resulted in data loss and downtime, according to the findings of a survey by Verizon Business released Wednesday.

An equal proportion of organizations (77%) have increased their cybersecurity budget in the last 12 months, as per Verizon Business Mobile Security Index 2022 report.

The three major factors driving the increase in cybersecurity spending include more devices, greater awareness of threats, and increased remote working/working from home, respectively.

Nearly 45% of surveyed respondents stated that their organization had suffered a security breach involving a mobile device in the last 12 months, up 22% year-on-year, the report highlighted. 73% of respondents described the impact of the attack as major, while about 42% said that it had lasting repercussions on the organization.

“For businesses–regardless of industry, size, or location on a map–downtime is money lost. Compromised data is trust lost, and those moments, although not insurmountable, are tough to rebound from,” said Sampath Sowmyanarayan, CEO, Verizon Business. “Companies need to dedicate time and budget on their security architecture, especially when it comes to off-premise devices: otherwise they are leaving themselves vulnerable to cyber-threat actors.”

Companies are increasingly reliant on mobile devices. This is partly driven by the shift toward more hybrid working, but there are several other factors too. For many, mobile devices are no longer a secondary device.

58% of companies said they have more users using mobile devices than 12 months ago, while over half (53%) of them mentioned that mobile devices have access to more sensitive data than a year ago.

“Many employees now have access to much of the same data—customer lists, banking details, employees’ personal data, billing information, etc.—and systems— messaging, enterprise resource planning (ERP), etc.—via their mobile devices as they would sitting at a desktop in the office. This means that the compromise of a mobile device can now pose a significant risk to customer data, intellectual property and core systems,” the report said.

To mitigate the negative impacts of cyber incidents, a majority of respondents (82%) that they had adopted or were actively considering adopting a Zero Trust approach to security. 85% of companies surveyed have a budget dedicated to mobile security

“With this model, dozens or potentially hundreds of devices, applications and users would not have wide-ranging access to the company’s network or sensitive data—they could only access the systems and information to which they are authorized,” the report said.