By 2020, the global spending on information security is anticipated to reach the $170 billion mark, according to Gartner. Unfortunately for most businesses, more investment in information security isn’t synonymous to a better cybersecurity posture. You might invest in a diversity of tools, but are they really the right tools for your current needs.
While some businesses invest in the wrong tools, others might purchase security tools with similar functionalities, leading to obsolete tools. If you end up spending cash on unnecessary security items, the chances are that you will receive less protection from these tools while your IT budget will go to waste. At the end of the day, a cost-benefit analysis might be pivotal in optimizing IT purchases, especially in cybersecurity.
Here is how to optimize your IT purchases on cybersecurity tools:
Identify What Needs Protection
Not all business assets need the same level of protection. For instance, health institutions will need to prioritize the protection of personally identifiable information while retail stores will need to protect the payment information of their customers most. Sadly, most businesses might invest in a variety of tools without first identifying the aspect of their business that needs the most protection.
Simply put, analyzing the common threats in your industry and identifying the key areas to protect will be pivotal in application rationalization. You should understand the current security procedures in place and any tweaks that need to be done to improve them.
Identify Your Risk Appetite
While two businesses might run in the same market and do the same business, their risk appetites might differ. For instance, a large company might need to retain its current market share while a small one might be aggressive in increasing its growth rate and outreach, which makes their risk appetite different. As such, you shouldn’t over-rely on the security spending statistics of other businesses when crafting your own spending predictions.
You should at least identify how much risk you can endure and build towards an ad hoc cybersecurity posture. However, identifying risk appetite isn’t a task preserved for IT leaders alone as a lot of considerations go into it. Instead, it should be formed through the collaboration of C-suite executives, IT leaders, and other key stakeholders in the running of the business.
Align Potential Losses with Cybersecurity Spending
Ideally, the amount you spend on cybersecurity shouldn’t go above the losses that can come from it. For instance, you shouldn’t spend $200,000 on security controls to protect something whose loss could amount up to $100,000 at most. In this case, there might be better alternatives for dealing with the threat than investing more than the threat can cost.
As such, you should use cybersecurity posture assessment strategies that dictate the impact of a threat to your current security spending. This links back to how well you can define whatever needs to be protected.
Ensure You Have Enough Resources for the Tools
You will typically hear stories of how a certain application can work wonders security wise. However, these tools cannot do the same for your organization as long as you can’t support them with your resources. You need to have the bandwidth, network requirements, and the skills to run such tools within your business.
As a result, assess your current infrastructure to determine whether you meet these needs before investing in any security tools. If you must invest in a tool which you are ill-prepared to maintain and configure, then you should consider outsourcing the task to other businesses.
Conclusion
Every penny that goes into cybersecurity must be used wisely. The more control you have on the ROI of IT investments, the better your security posture can be. Consider the tips above to invest in the right IT tools.