Firms set to bolster cache vs hackers

Companies are likely to increase their cybersecurity budgets by 9 percent in the next two years to strengthen firewalls against persistent hackers, according to a study by Kaspersky.

In its annual IT Security Economics report, the cybersecurity firm said surveyed respondents wanted to beef up their network security to avoid potential financial losses from cyberattacks.

The average cybersecurity budget for large enterprises is $5.7 million and $41.8 million for general information technology (IT) management. Small and medium businesses (SMB), meanwhile, allot $200,000 for cybersecurity measures, which forms part of their $1.6-million IT budget.

Large enterprises spent $6.2 million this year to recover from an average of 12 cyber incidents.

SMBs, meanwhile, encountered 16 digital attacks this year, shelling out $300,000 to restore operations.

Enhancing responses

“[The] constant growth in the complexity of cybersecurity threats forces companies to adopt more advanced solutions to enhance the detection of attack traces and automate responses,” Kaspersky vice president for center of corporate business expertise Veniamin Levtsov said.

Despite bigger companies having advanced cybersecurity infrastructure, the study noted their response to a cyberattack could “span for hours” given the scale of their network.

SMBs, meanwhile, lacked policies and procedures to address potential incidents, Kaspersky said.

The study is based on interviews with IT and IT security professionals across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Latin and North America.

Kaspersky previously said online threats targeting Philippine businesses grew by over threefold last year, as threat actors stepped up their game amid increasing digitalization.

Web-based attacks surge

The web-based attacks aimed at local enterprises surged to 1.69 million last year from 492,567 in 2022.

Web attacks come in different forms, including typical phishing emails embedded with suspicious web addresses linked to fake websites where unsuspecting victims are tricked into providing sensitive information.

The disruption in operations caused by cyberattacks is detrimental to business due to costs related to retrieval of data and systems, in addition to opportunity costs because of the downtime.