Cybersecurity spending increased by 39% in 2020

As many businesses moved operations to the cloud or to full-remote positions hackers stepped up their game to exploit this relatively new situation. As a result, businesses in Europe had the largest spending in cybersecurity in 2020 than ever before, an increase of 39%.

The Hiscox Cyber Readiness report (PDF) shows some growing trends that are still happening in 2021: the number of cyberattacks has decreased but the spending on cybersecurity has increased. The losses created by hacking events are also increasing. Despite all these efforts, In 2020 the financial losses increased six times to a median of US$57k per event.

This also shows the difficulty in applying only one metric when evaluating cybersecurity effectiveness. Although the total number of hacking events are going down, the actual losses and impact to the businesses are soaring. The combined losses of ransomware alone went up to US$381 m. Ireland and Germany are two of the most expensive countries regarding data breaches, above the US and the UK.

Despite all these numbers there are encouraging signs like the increasing awareness of businesses in matters of cybersecurity, increasingly swift responses and the more willingness of business to invest in cybersecurity services and solutions.