Companies up spending on cybersecurity

Man holding an orange cloud

Enterprises are spending more on hiring cyber-security staff and employing security-relevant tools, according to this year's PwC Global State of Information Security survey (GSISS)

More organisations are now adopting cloud services to store and manage their data, and extra security measures are being employed to prevent the breach of sensitive information, the study found.

Responses to the PwC survey suggested some of the fields making greater use of cloud services are IT (63%), finance (32%), marketing and sales (34%), customer service (34%) and operations (35%).

The GSISS survey collected the responses of over 10,000 CEOs, SFOs, CIOs, CISOs, SCOs, VPs and directors of IT/security practices from 127 different countries.

Out of all the study respondents, 59% said they are increasing their spending on cyber-security due to their companies' higher employment of digital technologies.

Overall, 62% of respondents said they currently use managed security services to ensure their company's data is safe from cyber-attacks.

"We are seeing more of what we once saw as a risk, being turned into possible solutions," said David Burg, PwC's global and US advisory cybersecurity leader. "For example, many organisations are embracing advanced authentication as a cloud service in place of solely password based authentication."

Some of the security measure respondents reported using include biometrics for authentication (57%), big data analytics (51%), and developing security strategies for the Internet of Things (46%).

Burg added that there is no one-size-fits-all model for effective cybersecurity.

"It's a journey toward a future state that starts with the right mix of technologies, processes, and people skills. With those components in place, cybersecurity potentially serve as an indispensable ongoing business enabler," he said.