The cyber security money pit
“The single most profitable technology for European partners is security” – TD Synnex Technology Ecosystem Benchmark Report Q4 2022
It would be hard to find people who don’t believe security is the pre-eminent concern for all organisations using IT equipment, software and services. And with good reason. There isn’t a week that goes by where security concerns, breaches and incidents are not highlighted in a news report or a survey. Very few businesses, organisations or individuals have been untouched by a security breach or cyber attack. Any company that remains unscathed is fortunate indeed.
Against this backdrop, it’s easy to see why security is the most profitable area for European partners. Nearly every organisation and business is spending money to boost their cyber defences, protection, prevention, mitigation and recovery. They are unlikely to stop anytime soon, especially as the security threats seem to increase in frequency, breadth and ferocity every year. No one can claim ignorance of the potentially devastating consequences of a successful cyber attack or security breach.
Unsurprisingly, people are spending time, effort and resource to try and reduce the risk and to improve their recovery chances after a successful breach. The good news that partners are reaping the benefits because they are often the deliverers of much of that cyber security ecosystem. It has become a general (and relatively unchallenged) assumption, expectation even, that security is – and should be – at the forefront of nearly every strategic IT decision and implementation.
But instead of celebrating the fact that security is such a profitable area, perhaps it would be better if it was viewed differently. Why isn’t it, for example, seen as a source of shame to the IT industry? If it was, perhaps more would be done to make products and services more secure and less vulnerable to cyber threats.
Imagine if you had to change the locks and bolts on your house doors and windows every year, or more frequently even, because burglars were able to create new ways of breaking in to your house almost at will? Would you respond benevolently when the door and window installer came around to swap your locks and charged you accordingly?
Or might you be a little bit irritated that someone was charging you more to change the locks every year because their product was unable to do the job of keeping your house secure from break-in? How about if they recommended increasing your security by bricking up as many windows and doors as possible to reduce the number of points where burglars could break in?
Yes, you’d still have a house but it would be very different to the one you bought or built. You would be the one forced to change how you used the house to try and make it more secure, not the people who fitted the doors and windows. Their job would be to sell you new locks every year. How great is that?
If you then discovered that selling new locks was their most profitable business, you might not be inclined to look on those people very favourably. We haven’t reached the point in the IT industry where opposition to the high price people are paying for security creates a negative view of technology itself but maybe it’s something we need to think about. Wouldn’t it reflect so much better on the IT industry if security was not the most profitable technology?
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