According to the report, ‘Now and Next for the cybersecurity industry’ by Canalys, Cybersecurity investment has increased significantly as compared to other segments in the IT industry in 2020. The report stated that the cybersecurity investment grew 10% to $53 billion in 2020. Yet, the threat of data breaches remains significant. This situation comes as business continuity and workforce productivity took precedence over security during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 According to Canalys estimates, investment in cloud infrastructure services increased by 33% in 2020 to $142 billion, an increase of $45 billion in annual expenditure as compared to 2019. While during the same period Cloud software services increased by over 20%. As the data breach crisis escalated in 2020, organizations must look to prioritize cybersecurity. According to the report, more records were compromised in just 12 months than in the previous 15 years combined. According to the data based on the public sources, approximately 30 billion records were said to be compromised within 12 months. The report also stated about the surge in ransomware attacks, where hospitals were specifically targeted. Many high-profile organizations went out of business in 2020, causing the surviving organizations to implement business continuity measures quickly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic or face ruin. This was often at the expense of cybersecurity and bypassing corporate policies, leaving many exposed to exploitation by highly organized and sophisticated threat actors, as well as other more opportunistic hackers.

Canalys Chief Analyst Matthew Ball cautioned everyone telling them to prioritize cybersecurity and invest in broadening protection, detection, and response measures or face disaster. He said that cybersecurity must be front and center of digital plans, otherwise, a mass extinction of organizations could occour, threatening the post-Covid-19 economic recovery. A lapse in focus on cybersecurity already has major repercussions, resulting in the escalation of the current data breach crisis and the acceleration of ransomware attacks.