Nearly 70% of large public and private organizations across the globe plan to increase their cybersecurity spending as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study from LearnBonds.
With millions of people forced to spend more time indoors and online, these new circumstances created a huge space for cyber criminals to exploit the crisis.
According to the study, in 2017, both private and business online users around the world spent $34bn on cybersecurity solutions. Before the coronavirus outbreak, this amount was forecast to hit $42bn in 2020.
However, this figure could easily increase by the end of the year due to the new opportunities for cybercriminals during coronavirus crisis creating.
Besides boosting their cybersecurity spending, as the top IT priority this year, around 55% of major organisations will boost their investments in automation solutions. Smart analytics, hybrid or multi-cloud and artificial intelligence follow, with 53%, 49% and 46% of those bodies asked naming them as their leading IT investments this year.
The study shows spending on augmented and virtual reality technology, blockchain and edge computing is under pressure this year, with just 32%, 30% and 27% of enterprises planning to increase their spending on these technologies in 2020.