When asked to nominate where spending would be directed in the new financial year, firewalls topped the list in cyber investment with 63 per cent indicating strong demand for high-performance firewall appliances. In addition, 51 per cent indicated robust demand for network security monitoring tools, with 41% forecasting that remote employee security would still command investment with many Australian businesses now operating a hybrid workplace environment.
“This data shows security budgets will be directed to areas that can deliver significant and measurable benefits,” said Anthony Daniel, Regional Director – Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, WatchGuard Technologies. “While paying attention to emerging technologies such as AI, security teams are not turning their backs on the fundamentals needed to create an effective security structure capable of protecting their key IT assets.”
Current security challenges
When asked to name the cybersecurity threats their customers will face during the next 12 months, 75 percent of survey respondents pointed to data breaches and data loss. Other threats included identity-based threats (45%), ransomware (38%), a lack of relevant technical skills to counter cybersecurity threats (36%) and the ongoing popularity of generative AI (31%).
Driving cybersecurity threats over the next 12 months are an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape (62%), cyber attacks on remote workers (39%) and emergence of generative AI technology (34%). Right now, 54 per cent of respondents are seeing social engineering attacks on their customers’ employees, while just under one in three advise that credential stuffing and account takeovers are common cyber attacks.
“It’s clear that the potential damage and loss caused by data breaches is widely understood,” said Daniel. “It’s also interesting that generative AI is becoming a major perceived threat. “It will also be important to constantly monitor the threat landscape to ensure that the tools that are in place are capable of providing the level of protection that is required. Effective security has never been a set-and-forget activity and this will continue to be the case in the new financial year and beyond.”
Interestingly, while more than half of respondents indicated that generative AI will unlock new work opportunities, just 10 per cent believe it will improve productivity and just 16% indicate it will encourage innovation.
“AI has much to offer security teams who simply cannot keep up with the velocity of today’s cyber attacks,” said Daniel. “As with our newly launch network detection and response product, WatchGuard ThreatSync+ NDR, an advanced AI detection engine is used to automate and simplify the continuous monitoring, detection and remediation of threats. Using AI to rapidly identify the most serious threats helps security teams find threats they might have otherwise missed, and focus on the most serious threats to their business.”
