Organizations in the Benelux spend about 17 percent of their IT budget on security each year. Moreover, over the past two years more than 70 percent have provided or plan to provide extra funds specifically to ward off ransomware.
The statistics come from a survey commissioned by IT news site Computable, which recently presented the results at the Cybersec Europe trade show. About 350 Benelux organizations of various sizes were involved in the survey.
Fear of cyber threat
17% for security, that's a big chunk of the overall IT budget. A clear sign that enterprises are taking the threat of cyber attacks more than seriously. Of course, the larger the organization, the larger the budget for IT security.
Internal versus external services
It is also notable that about half of the security budget is spent internally, for example on in-house specialized staff and IT security maintenance. The other half of the budget goes to external, specialized security partners such as Cheops.
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Managed Security Services providers are increasingly using a so-called Managed Security Operations Center or Managed SOC. In Belgium, there are only a handful of companies that can offer these specialized services. The SOC includes security specialists who use advanced tools, technology and processes to permanently monitor, manage and systematically improve security. After all, most organizations do not have the size or budgets to invest in expensive software, specific solutions and/or in hiring their own specialists to monitor their IT security around the clock.
The benefits of scalability of a Managed Security provider
Managed Security Services Providers - also known as MSSPs - provide the platform, expertise and resources that a small or medium-sized business cannot access financially or organizationally themselves. As they do so for several organizations, interesting benefits in terms of scalability arise. This makes high-level cybersecurity possible and affordable, even for SMEs.
Thorough approach to security
In any case, cybercrime such as phishing, ransomware and DDoS attacks remains a rising concern. A thorough approach is therefore not a luxury but a strict necessity. Consequently, look at your security on a strategic level. Has a disaster recovery plan already been drawn up? To ensure the continuity of critical applications, companies usually back up their IT environment to a second location, either in-house or in the cloud.
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