Canalys, a well-known market analysis firm, has warned of "mass extinction of businesses" that don't spend more on cybersecurity. This comes on the back of its own report that said there were more data breaches in the last 12 months than in the last 15 years combined. It said ransomware attacks have surged with hospitals being the major target.
Canalys, in its two-part report titled ‘Now and Next for the cybersecurity industry’, said 2020 experienced a data breach crisis. Some 30 billion records were compromised within a 12-month period, more than the previous 15 years combined, it said.
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$53 billion spent on cyber security
The irony here is cybersecurity outperformed other IT spending in 2020 after registering a 10% increase to $53 billion globally.
Many organisations, just to survive the lockdown, implemented business continuity measures. "This was often at the expense of cybersecurity and bypassed longstanding corporate policies, leaving many exposed to exploitation by highly organized and sophisticated threat actors, as well as other more opportunistic hackers," Canalys said.
It estimated that cloud infrastructure services grew 33% in 2020 to $142 billion, representing an increase of $45 billion in annual spend against 2019. Cloud software services increased more than 20% during the same period, according to Canalys.
“Cybersecurity must be front and center of digital plans, otherwise there will be a mass extinction of organizations, which will threaten the post-COVID-19 economic recovery,” said Canalys Chief Analyst Matthew Ball in a statement.
“A lapse in focus on cybersecurity is already having major repercussions, resulting in the escalation of the current data breach crisis and acceleration of ransomware attacks,” he added.
