What are the costs and benefits of developing cybersecurity programs in business?

In recent times we can observe a growing rate of cybercrime/attacks happening to businesses. Cybersecurity extends over businesses and we can see that both industries have a lot in common, such as companies implementing computers, the creation of cybersecurity businesses, and both want to protect their business and people. With that being said, we can see how investing in cybersecurity can benefit and improve business all across the world.
Businesses need to make certain that all systems are fully secured and need to implement different tools and tactics to ensure it.We can also see how beneficial cybersecurity is from a legal perspective. If private information is breached and compromised, companies will be liable for those actions. Additionally, we can examine from an ethical viewpoint, business relies on consumers’ trust for profit, if that trust is broken it violates the code of ethics as well as harms both consumers and producers. Businesses are ethically obligated to uphold standards with clients and users private information/data.
Furthermore, businesses need to place a focus in budgeting for cybersecurity programs and tools. Many businesses experiencing cyber attacks “According to Netwrix Research Lab’s 2023 Hybrid Security Trends Report, 68 percent of all organizations surveyed — large and small — had experienced a cyberattack in the past 12 months. More specifically, 43 percent of data breaches involved small businesses.” (Rinaldi, 2024) Businesses need to take into account how this can affect their business both internally and externally. It can damage their goods, lose in revenue, disrupt operations, as well as added expenses such as detection costs, investigation costs, containment costs, recovering costs and ex-post responding costs (Module 8). According to “The Cost of Cybersecurity and How to Budget for It” focuses on areas the cybersecurity budget should include,like, taking account for risk assessments, incident response, employee training and so on. It also shows us tips in securing a budget such asking for advice from cybersecurity providers, taking account of companies size, compliance, and sensitivity.

Bowman, C. (2024, January 6). Businesses must ensure systems are secure. Canvas. https://canvas.odu.edu/courses/153088/pages/1-businesses-must-ensure-systems-are-secure-2?module_item_id=5858248

Rinaldi, A. (2024, January 17). How much should your SMB budget for cybersecurity?. business.com. https://www.business.com/articles/smb-budget-for-cybersecurity/