Main spending priorities for cyber resilience 2023, by priority level

According to a survey of senior security professionals, increasing the cyber resilience of cybersecurity team members constituted the top spending priority in 2023, as highlighted by 83 percent of respondents, 37 percent of which considered it an essential priority. Another essential spending priority was the improvement of processes within organizations for incident response and post-incident remediation, as reported by 30 percent of respondents.

Cybersecurity spending is on the rise

As news headlines continue to report an ever-growing number of cyberattacks around the world, global spending on information security has been growing consistently in recent years, increasing from just under 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 to over 175 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Most spending has concentrated on security services, infrastructure protection, and network security equipment, with the first expected to reach nearly 90 billion U.S. dollars by 2024. As a result, a vast majority of business and technology executives worldwide anticipate their organization's cybersecurity budget to increase in 2024, a trend particularly visible in business and professional services companies.

A lack of qualified cybersecurity talent

The total number of professionals working in the cybersecurity industry was estimated to exceed five million in 2023. Nevertheless, most companies worldwide considered their company’s IT security team to be understaffed that year. While some of the main reasons for cybersecurity staff shortages include budget and wage concerns, the most important reason cited by cybersecurity professionals worldwide was because they could not find enough qualified talent. Among the most in-demand skills, particularly for some specific roles involving cloud security, security operations, and network security.