Page 172 - Cyber Defense eMagazine January 2024

As budgets begin to shrink, companies need to find innovative ways to continue investing in the best
possible security tools to keep up with modernizing cybercriminals. Carefully choosing top-rate security
tools and reviewing existing underutilized software contracts may help businesses cut down budgets
while securing themselves from cyber threats.

Why investing in your company’s security is crucial during a recession

While making budget cuts may seem like the natural reaction to an economic slowdown, tech leaders
actually plan to increase spending in IT and security departments to promote resilience through the
recession.

Data breaches don’t stop during a recession and in fact, cybercriminals are more likely to attack during
periods of economic uncertainty. Not only does this leave a company at risk of an attack, but may also
impact their client’s data if top-rate security is swapped out with an underfunded department. To ensure
client retention, tech leaders are prioritizing their customer service by increasing their funding in high-
quality security tools.

What is worth the investment, and what isn’t worth the hype?

Companies need to prioritize their investments in customers, resilience, and revenue when planning their
recession budget. Despite economic turbulence, 70% of respondents in the Forrester study reported
planned budget increases in customer experience in 2023. To retain valuable customers during a period
of instability, businesses will have to continue putting them first and exceeding their
expectations. Baseline expectations of consumers continue to rise, and without proper investment there
is a risk of driving customers away.

With client data more and more at risk, client-facing security solutions are a sustainable investment for
businesses. By prioritizing customer’s data as well as their digital experience, companies can
simultaneously protect their reputation and their clients. Maintaining focus on data security even when
times are tough will also lead to better understanding throughout the company of the latest cyber threats.
This will also help prevent accidental internal data breaches, which can sometimes be more costly for
companies than attacks from cybercriminals.

Companies should invest in resilient security tools to optimize their budgets. Though initially more costly,
high-quality solutions will be more sustainable than lower-cost solutions, which could potentially be more
liable to security breaches, leading to expensive crisis management. Forrester suggests businesses
should invest in support for modernizing the cloud, a complete transition to Zero Trust, or in the event
that a security breach does occur, training on crisis management and purple team exercises.

How do you test out the latest security while also making sure that your solutions are resilient? Approach
new tech with caution, Forrester research recommends. For example, while AI is clearly an extremely
powerful tool that can help optimize business, it also comes with multiple risks. Privacy preserving

Cyber Defense eMagazine – January 2024 Edition 172
Copyright © 2024, Cyber Defense Magazine. All rights reserved worldwide.