With speculation of a possible recession, your organization will likely consider budget adjustments in preparation for tough economic times. You might be wondering what to do about cybersecurity spending and asking: is cybersecurity recession-proof? Read on to learn how you can think about cybersecurity during a recession.
Will Cybersecurity be Affected by a Recession?
Cybersecurity is unlikely to be affected in a major way by a recession. However, it helps to be prepared for a possible cybersecurity economic crisis and understand how a recession might impact your cybersecurity infrastructure. To help you prepare, this blog will cover:
- Cybersecurity recession statistics
- The importance of cybersecurity during a recession
- Best practices for managing cybersecurity during a recession
Economic crises are challenging and uncertain periods that can impact any organization’s operations and business objectives. And, to the extent that there will be one, you can prepare for a cybersecurity recession with the help of a managed security services provider (MSSP).
Cybercrime Statistics During Economic Crises
Historically, cybercrime rates tend to increase during economic crises, demonstrating the importance of cybersecurity in a recession. During the 2008 economic crisis, email security firms reported customers receiving as many as 800,000 phishing emails daily. More recently, Google reported over 18 million daily malware and phishing attempts during the COVID pandemic in 2020.
In many cases, the cybercriminals participating in these types of crimes are individuals with advanced IT skills looking for lucrative opportunities.
Why Cybercrime Increases During Recessions
Cybercrime increases during recessions because there are more vulnerabilities for cybercriminals to exploit. As some organizations reduce their cybersecurity spending and redirect their investments to other areas, they create gaps in their cybersecurity infrastructure.
For instance, if an organization reduces the frequency of security awareness training over a six-month span, employees might be less aware of potential phishing or ransomware attacks. A single successful phishing attempt could jeopardize the organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure, exposing sensitive data to cyber threats.
Organizations also tend to undergo a lot more changes during recessions, which might compromise the robustness of security controls. For example, layoffs, department reorganizations, and other organization-wide changes can make any company an attractive target for cybercrime.
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The Importance of Cybersecurity During an Economic Downturn
As technology evolves daily, cybersecurity risks also advance and become more complex. Without the appropriate cybersecurity safeguards, your organization will be at risk for cyber threats. If your organization handles high-risk sensitive data daily, these cyber threat risks will remain—regardless of the economic environment. And some industries (e.g., healthcare, financial services, retail) are at a higher risk of being cybercrime targets.
Investing in cybersecurity services will help minimize threat risks that could compromise your data security, resulting in data breaches and long-term reputational, legal, and financial consequences.
How to Manage Cybersecurity and Compliances During a Recession
A significant portion of cybersecurity management during a recession involves developing processes and procedures to mitigate cybersecurity risks before they can materialize into threats. Compliance with regulatory frameworks like the PCI DSS (for organizations that handle card payments) and HIPAA (for organizations within and adjacent to healthcare) requires these organizations to develop and implement organization-specific policies to guide data security best practices.
Once these processes are established and implemented with security policy oversight, it is unlikely the recession will significantly impact cybersecurity. Your organization is then responsible for remaining compliant with these policies throughout the recession.
How to Get The Most From Your Cybersecurity Budget
Optimizing cybersecurity spending during a recession can be challenging, especially when your organization has developed a strict budget. However, implementing robust security controls is critical to keeping your organization’s digital assets safe from cyber threats.
You can think of cybersecurity as a critical operational cost; without it, your data is at high risk of being compromised. You can maximize your cybersecurity ROI by:
- Prioritizing cybersecurity safeguards for high-risk critical assets
- Conducting frequent security awareness training exercises for your staff
- Complying with regulatory frameworks that apply to the sensitive data you handle
Ultimately, partnering with an experienced cybersecurity services provider will help you get the most out of your cybersecurity budget, ensuring your critical assets remain protected throughout the recession and beyond.
Top Cybersecurity Tips During a Recession
To thrive during a recession, your organization will likely need to optimize its security controls and implement best practices to keep sensitive digital assets safe. The most important include:
- Cybersecurity staffing – Although most organizations tend to reduce staffing costs during a recession, prioritizing your security staffing budget will help you:
- Retain highly skilled cybersecurity talent
- Maintain institutional security knowledge
- Minimize the time costs of hiring new talent post-recession
- Reduce staffing gaps and related vulnerabilities
- Security awareness training – Keeping your staff aware of current and potential cyber threats will equip them to identify and mitigate them from impacting your sensitive data environments.
- Staying up-to-date with industry trends – Without understanding the types of threats to which your organization is exposed during the recession, you will be unable to prepare for or deploy the appropriate cyber defenses.
- Outsourcing cybersecurity services – If your budget is constrained to support several cybersecurity professionals, consider outsourcing security to a managed security services provider (MSSP). Outsourced security tends to be less costly and can be optimized to meet your organization’s specific needs, especially during a recession.
Above all, the most effective way to navigate these decisions is to partner with an information security services provider with experience handling cybersecurity during a recession.
How RSI Security Can Help
It’s no surprise when organizations ask, “ is cybersecurity recession-proof?” Although recessions can create uncertainty about spending, cybersecurity remains a crucial investment.
As an experienced MSSP, RSI Security has worked with many organizations to implement reliable security controls that protect sensitive data, regardless of the economic environment.
To learn more, contact RSI Security today!
FAQs About Cybersecurity During a Recession
Is Cybersecurity Recession Proof?
Yes, for the most part, cybersecurity is recession-proof. Most organizations today require cybersecurity services to secure the sensitive data they store on-premise or on the cloud.
Even in times of economic crisis, these organizations will be looking to invest in reliable cybersecurity services.
What are The 3 Major Threats to Cyber Security Today?
Three major security threats to organizations today include:
- Phishing – Cybercriminals use phishing attacks to trick unsuspecting targets into providing them access to sensitive data environments. Using these techniques, perpetrators can successfully convince employees at an organization to divulge sensitive information or click on malicious links.
- Ransomware – As a form of malware, cybercriminals use ransomware to infiltrate networks containing sensitive data. Once they have gained access to these environments, the criminals will then demand ransoms from their victims in exchange for access to the compromised data.
- Advanced persistent threats (APTs) – These threats leverage state-of-the-art technology to infiltrate and compromise a target organization’s security infrastructure—enabling perpetrators to access, modify, or delete sensitive data.
The nature of these threats may also change as technology risks evolve, meaning organizations must always be vigilant for emerging threats to their information security infrastructure.
Why is Cybersecurity Demand Increasing?
Cybersecurity demand is increasing because of the fast pace at which cyber threats evolve and become complex. For instance, network threats that were prevalent five or 10 years ago (e.g., viruses and worms) have become more advanced and can be deployed by cybercriminals using a social engineering approach. With greater access to the Internet via mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there are more avenues for cybercriminals to target organizations that handle sensitive data.