Australian organisations reported a cyber attack every eight minutes in the 2021 financial year, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), an increase of 13 per cent from the previous year. At the same time, the country faces a severe shortage in cyber security specialists, creating a risk environment where businesses and governments can no longer independently protect themselves effectively.
According to the ACSC, self-reported losses from cybercrime for the year totaled more than $33 billion. Not only is the aftermath of cyber attacks costly, but prevention is equally as taxing on organisations. According to new research from IBRS and Insight Economics, large organisations dedicate an average of 7.5 per cent of their ICT budget to protecting against cyber threats.
At the same time, data from AustCyber highlighted that Australia’s job market is currently facing a severe skill shortage. Australia needs an additional 7,000 skilled cyber security specialists over the next two years according to an article from the Australian Financial Review (AFR). Globally, there is a shortage of 1.5 million cyber professionals, with this figure growing by around 250,000 per year.
With demand outweighing supply, organisations are looking to cloud technologies to address key business challenges specifically, Software as a Service (SaaS).
SaaS can relieve the cost and burden of cyber security
Behind every SaaS provider, is a large pool of dedicated resources, skills and knowledge, working together to make sure their platform is the most up-to-date, secure and efficient. By outsourcing to a SaaS platform, companies can remove the risk, strain and cost of cyber security.
According to the research from IBRS and Insight Economics, governments and businesses have seen a substantial improvement in security as a result of migration to SaaS. In other words, the report found that organisations were paying less for better security outcomes by moving to SaaS and availing themselves of the specialist skills of scale providers.
Daniel Sultana, Executive Vice President of SaaS Platform at TechnologyOne noted a trend of companies – both big and small, struggling under the weight of cyber security.
“At TechnologyOne, we have seen a lot of smaller agencies and companies struggling under the threat of cyber security. They’re realising that no internal team could ever be resourced enough to respond to the ever-changing threats of cyber security.
“As a SaaS provider, we can relieve that burden for them. Many also tell us that it means their IT teams can return their focus to areas that are within their control, which is considerably more beneficial for them. We can provide them with a quality service, with the weight of our extensive resources and knowledge-base to protect their data from cyber threats.”
For more information on the economic benefits of SaaS, download the research from IBRS and Insight Economics, commissioned by TechnologyOne.
This sponsored editorial is brought to you by TechnologyOne. For more information, visit technologyonecorp.com/.
