Don’t go over your budget, but do go over…

Budgets are one of life’s irritating necessities. It’s an important necessity however as without them there would be no accountability and departments within each organisation would be broke come end of the financial year.
IT budgets are constantly in flux, tied to a number of variables. CIOs and IT decision makers are dealing with ever-changing priorities and factors that have an impact on where they should spend.
Information security
Information security is one of the most important areas that needs to be considered on a CIO / IT decision makers’ list.
Last month, we commissioned a survey of 263 IT professionals in Irish business via TechPro magazine looking at various elements of information security including the average information security spend.
The most notable statistics was how much companies actually spend on the impact of cybercrime and security breaches, in terms of protection, response and damage done.
The findings revealed that on average, Irish organisations spend €240,000 each year dealing with cybercrime.
Where should you spend?
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for information security that all organisations can adapt – it depends on a number of factors like size and risk factor.
Our experience tells us that organisations typically spend somewhere between 4% and 10% of their IT budget on information security. That’s a significant chunk to be spending on an annual basis, so it’s important to make sure it’s going to the right areas. We recommend a proactive approach instead of costly firefighting which is a drain on budgets and energy.
There are any number of security solutions organisations can avail of – it’s important to talk to an informed expert who can assess the needs of your organisation and perform a full risk assessment and audit.
Organisations that have been unfortunate enough to suffer a security breach will tell you that prevention is better than the cure, so it’s better to invest early and have the right structures in place in case the worst happens.