Cybersecurity Budgets and Staffing Increase in 2022 According to New Report

The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) released the CISO Benchmark Report, which includes data about budgets, personnel, and organizational priorities from cybersecurity leaders across consumer-facing industries.  

The report reveals that 70% of survey respondents expect the 2022 budget for information security to be higher than in 2021, and only 2% expect budgets to be cut. Additionally, 67% of survey respondents expect to see an increase in the number of full-time employees who work in cybersecurity at their company.  

The increase in budget and personnel will, in part, go toward supporting key initiatives that CISOs and cybersecurity leaders are planning to implement in order to mitigate security risks. Ransomware resilience planning tops the list of key initiatives, with 69% of survey respondents saying they are working on ransomware resilience projects in 2022.  

“The upward trend in both budgets and staff for InfoSec departments demonstrates the critical importance of cybersecurity,” said Suzie Squier, president of RH-ISAC. “Companies are making investments in cybersecurity in order to protect their bottom line, and participating as an active member of the RH-ISAC community helps that investment to go even further.” 

The companies represented in this survey include retail, restaurants, hotels, casinos, travel, and consumer packaged goods and reflect more than 304,000 total locations, 2.1 million corporate employees, and $1.3 trillion in annual sales. 

A summary version of the CISO Benchmark Report is available here. The full version of the report is available to RH-ISAC members.