ICT security is not only of decisive importance in terms of influencing the development of the ICT market, but is also one of the top issues in companies. Cybercrime and attacks on companies and the resulting ICT and business failures can cause major financial damage , damage your image and also have consequences for the management, the board of directors or the owner.
The great importance of the topic of ICT security in Switzerland is also evident from the number of ICT projects: In 88 percent of the companies surveyed as part of our new study, the topic of security is the top priority in the ICT departments. Companies spend a lot of money to ensure added value and highly available processes and applications. For 2023, too, they will continue to increase their security budgets for setting up and maintaining appropriate defense systems.
Last year, spending on security and high availability was 3 billion francs. For this year we expect growth of 6.5 percent. This makes the market for ICT security and high availability one of the fastest growing segments of the entire ICT market, with a strong shift in spending towards external service providers. Expenditure on services from external service providers is currently showing the highest growth rates. This includes the areas of managed security services, audit and test services as well as consulting.
However, the challenges for the ICT departments are also increasing due to the ever-increasing areas of attack. Technological trends and developments are further drivers here. The trend towards hybrid working environments, the shift of work to the home office, the increasing digitization of business processes, the increasing spread of multi-clouds and the large number of data-collecting IoT devices are constantly creating further targets for cyber attacks.
Simply relying on ICT security technologies, devices and solutions is not enough. In order to minimize the increasing risks, companies believe it is just as important to sensitize employees to the dangers. This includes training on the safe use of e-mail and the Internet, but also limited user rights, access management (eg personal logins) and multi-factor logins.
Ultimately, the proactive and security-conscious behavior and discipline of the employees make a decisive contribution to the security of data storage, ICT high availability and processes.
