Cybersecurity remains an investment priority despite the overall IT budget cuts in the pandemic times. While, it has been reported that the  small and medium businesses (SMBs) allocated $275,000 to cybersecurity and on the other hand, enterprises invested $14 million on average this year. 

The share of IT budget dedicated to IT security continues to grow year-on-year, according to the report by cyber security firm Kaspersky; even though the overall IT budget has fallen from $1.2 million in 2019 to $1.1 million in 2020 among SMBs, it has been witnessing a steady growth, thereafter.   

"This decrease may be due to the consequences of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to Gartner, whose experts also predicted that budgets would decrease earlier this year."

"Even though budgets get revised, it doesn't mean cybersecurity needs to go down on the priority list. We recommend that businesses, who have to spend less on cybersecurity in the coming years, get smart about it and use every available option to bolster their defenses," said Alexander Moiseev, Chief Business Officer at Kaspersky.

"It is clear that those affected have needed to optimise their expenses to survive. But while this impacts cyber-protection, it's important for businesses to find a way to keep safe from cyber-risks in such a challenging time," the report mentioned.

Among SMBs, the need to cut overall company expenses and optimize budgets (29 per cent), has been primarily dictated by  the reason to reduce spend in this segment.