Businesses in South Africa plan to increase their cybersecurity budgets by 22% in the next three years, in line with small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises globally that are set to increase their budgets for cybersecurity over the same period, says cybersecurity multinational Kaspersky.

The top five factors driving information technology (IT) security budget increases in South African organisations are business expansion, the need to boost the level of expertise of IT security specialists, recent cybersecurity incidents, the increasing complexity of IT infrastructure, and new risks arising from geopolitical and economic uncertainty, showed the 'Kaspersky for the IT Security Economics' report.

In the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa region, the median cybersecurity budgets for enterprises in 2022 were $7.5-million, while over $18-million had been allocated for IT in general, while for small and medium-sized businesses the figures stood at $150 000 for IT security in 2022 and $375 000 for IT in general.

Budget increases would also help to counter the IT security issues that organisations currently face, says Kaspersky corporate products VP Ivan Vassunov.

“Business continuity is ever depending on information security. Nowadays when infrastructure becomes more complex and cyberattacks become more sophisticated, businesses are becoming more cyber aware and better understand the need for protecting every asset inside the organisation,” he notes.

“Further, State regulations are another important factor influencing the growing budgets for information security, as they require businesses to keep their operations and data secure. Sometimes, regulators may tighten rules for a whole vertical market or industry,” he adds.

The top factors driving the cybersecurity budgets of businesses in South Africa as reported by respondents to the report survey include improving levels of specialist security expertise at 62% of respondents, the increased complexity of IT infrastructure at 59% of respondents, recent security incidents at 43% of respondents and new business activities or expansions at 42% of respondents citing it as a reason for budget increases.

Further, 38% of respondents said new risks owing to geopolitical or economic uncertainty were a factor, 34% cited compliance or legal requirements, 30% cited increased profits, meaning more funds were available, and 29% of respondents said new locations for their businesses were a factor driving IT security budget increases.

Meanwhile, the survey showed that 61% of businesses in South Africa reported the high cost of securing complex technology hardware and software to be the most challenging issue.

Further, 48% of local businesses reported problems with data protection, as they had experienced loss or exposure of corporate or customer data.

Additionally, issues with suffering downtime and loss of productivity were reported by 41% of respondents, while low cybersecurity skills of employees were reported by 40% of respondents, 33% of respondents said cloud infrastructure adoption was a challenging issue, and 22% said business processes were challenging issues.

To maximise the efficiency of cybersecurity investments and minimise the risk of any attacks and data breaches for businesses, an effective endpoint protection with threat detection and response capabilities should also be used, Vassunov advises.