Large companies are bulking up cybersecurity budgets
A survey of risk managers from Nationwide showed 90% are moderately or very concerned their company will fall victim to a cyberattack.
A recent survey of risk managers by Nationwide revealed a substantial portion of large companies’ budgets is going to fight cyberattacks. Nearly half of respondents said their company has dedicated 25%- 49% of their IT budget to cybersecurity and 68% expect those budgets will continue to grow.
The good news is while concerns about cybercrime continue to rise, 91% of survey respondents said their company had an incident response plan in place in the event of a cyberattack.
“Nationwide’s previous studies have revealed that consumers as well as small to mid-sized businesses have begun to take cyber threats very seriously,” Tim Nunziata, vice president of cyber risk for Nationwide Excess and Surplus/Specialty, said in a release. “Large businesses have always been a target and that’s why many already have teams in place to protect them. As the threats become more frequent and sophisticated, risk managers know they must remain vigilant.”
Sixty-eight percent of risk managers told Nationwide their company has experienced a cyberattack in the last three years, and nearly one-quarter reported they had been victimized in the past year. These attacks can be devastating to companies, with 75% of those whose company had experienced an attack saying it had a “significant or moderate” financial impact and 35% reporting the recovery process took longer than four months.
These companies are turning to their insurers in the wake of cyberattacks, the survey found, and 77% said their company either purchased cyber insurance, updated their existing cyber insurance or asked their insurance agent for advice and information about policies after they were targeted.
Recent events have also driven concern about cyber threats. More than half of respondents said they believe their company’s cyber risk is greater than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 57% believe the threat has increased since the start of the war in Ukraine.