With businesses becoming more and more reliant on cyber systems, from email servers to databases , it behooves any self respecting business to have a cybersecurity program. No matter the nature and size of the business, be it a monolithic entity like Google or the local auto shop down the street, they need some form of cybersecurity program. When it comes to developing a cybersecurity program, there are different costs and benefits to the different activities a business’s program can do. Here is a discussion of just such costs and benefits.

The main costs a business has for anything it does is time and money. A cybersecurity program takes both of these, so a business needs to know where to spend them. Some benefits for such things is data security, availability of their data, and just overall ability to keep doing business.

For a company like Google, they handle quite a lot of users and their personal data, such as their emails. This is an area that if violated would be devastating to the company, and would constitute a very, very heavy loss of revenue not to mention a loss of trust from their customers. So, that is an area that Google would invest a not insubstantial amount of time and money to prevent from happening. They can do this fairly easily since they have plenty of resources to spare for such a thing. The auto shop down the road however does not.

An auto shop may not be as big a target as a company like Google, but they are no less vulnerable, and uniquely so. While Google could survive any number of small incidents, the auto shop down the street can’t tolerate a single incident. If their customer database were removed or their financial accounts were violated, they would be out of business in no time flat. So a company like the auto shop would need to weigh the costs differently.