The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that the spread of COVID-19 will depress global economic growth in 2020 to below 2.5%, the recession threshold. Indeed, organizations are already seeing weak demand and decreased revenue and profits, and are responding by taking cost-containment measures and canceling planned investments. These changes will almost certainly affect physical security technology and cybersecurity projects; indeed the latest numbers from Gartner and Forrester expect a decline in global global IT spending cybersecurity budgets.
While prompt detection of security incidents has always been critical, it is even more vital during an economic downturn. According to the 2019 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Study, the longer it takes a company to detect a breach, the more it will cost. Organizations that spend more than 200 days on incident detection have a 37% higher cost of a breach compared to those who detected security incidents sooner. Those steeper costs are harder to absorb now and could even put a company out of business.