Billion Dollar Annual CyberSecurity Budgets Have Arrived

Major American banks and various other parties serving them are each spending $1 Billion per year on cybersecurity, according to Bank of America’s CEO, Brian Moynihan.

Moynihan made the comment on CNBC’s Squawk Box show yesterday (June 14), noting that “I became CEO 11 and a half years ago, and we probably spent $300 million to $400 million (per year) and we’re up over a billion now… The institutions around us, other institutions and my peers, spend like amounts, and our contracting parties spend like amounts. In other words, we cause spending in third parties that provide services to us to protect us in the same way. So there is a lot of money being spent on this, and I think one of the things our industry has done a great job of is working together.”

Of course, even organizations that spend a billion dollars per year on cybersecurity are not immune to breaches – which is why financial institutions also utilize other cyber-risk management techniques, including implementing robust disaster recovery plans, and obtaining appropriate cyber-liability insurance.

While reaching the billion dollar per company per year milestone reflects a positive development for the cybersecurity industry, it also reflects the sad reality that cyberthreats continue to grow exponentially. Until governments act to adequately dissuade would-be cyberattackers from perpetrating cybercrimes, the cost of protecting an organization will likely continue to rise dramatically with time.