Australian Organizations Increase Cyber Security Spend to Nearly A$5B in 2021

Stu Sjouwerman | Apr 9, 2021

Australian Increase Cyber Security SpendThe rise in cyberattacks in Australia is seeing its natural result – organisations realizing the need to put more budget focused on cybersecurity, with the largest portion going towards services.

I make sure to represent Australia here in the blog, as they, too, are experiencing the same rise in cyberattacks as the rest of the world. Australia has seen a massive 75% increase in phishing attacks last year alone, earning them a spot at the cybersecurity table.

According to Gartner, Australian organisations are planning on spending A$4.93B on cybersecurity and risk management solutions. Cloud Security, Identity and Access Management, and Infrastructure Protection top the list of cybersecurity segments that are given the highest budget focus.

3-15-21 Image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Gartner

Every segment but one – “Other Information Security Software” – saw a rise in the amount of dollars to be spent. The largest segment, representing 65% of the spend, is “Security Services, which Gartner did not expand upon.

Sadly, what’s missing from the list above is Security Awareness Training, which has been proven to be very effective in significantly reducing the risk of cyberattack via phishing – shown to involved in more than 90% of all cyberattacks. The data has shown that organizations who have instituted this kind of training achieve a 87.5% reduction in the phishing threat surface – in layman’s terms, users are 87.5% less likely to click on a phishing email.

This level of efficacy demands a line item on every organisation’s cybersecurity budget. Let’s hope at very least it’s included as part of “Security Services”.

See KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training in Action

See how you can efficiently safeguard your organization from sophisticated social engineering threats.

Request a Demo

Secure the Digital Workforce: Human + AI

KnowBe4 empowers the modern workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Trusted by more than 70,000 organizations worldwide, KnowBe4 is the pioneer of digital workforce security, securing both AI agents and humans. The KnowBe4 Platform provides attack simulation and training, collaboration security, and agent security powered by AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) and a proprietary Risk Score. The platform leverages 15 years of behavioral data to combat advanced threats including social engineering, prompt injection, and shadow AI. By securing humans and agents, KnowBe4 leads the industry in workforce trust and defense.