It's hard to believe that it's already 2022! The 2020s have been one of the most impactful decades in recent times. It was the first decade in which artificial intelligence started to become a part of our daily lives, and we've seen some changes that are both wonderful and frightening.

We’ve made massive strides in terms of medical sciences, but facial recognition software has also become commonplace across technology platforms. And while these represent only two facets of what it means to invest in cybersecurity, there are more worth noting. Cybersecurity is fascinating because it touches on so many aspects of our life — from national security to privacy rights — and its complexity will only increase as new technologies are discovered or developed.

Before we get into what it means to “invest in cybersecurity,” it's important to understand the current state of affairs. Cybersecurity is a bit of a misnomer — at least in its current state — because it’s about more than protecting digital assets such as data and finances. The word “cyber” is meant to indicate that need for protection in an interconnected manner, which makes sense because we rely on these networks for so many aspects of our lives. Here are some statistics that highlight the increased reliance on networks.

-  The number of mobile devices around the world will reach 6.3 billion by 2022. ( Source : Statista )

-  There will be 1.98 billion smartphone users around the world in 2022. ( Source : Statista )

-  By 2021, there will be an estimated 2.4 trillion installed IoT devices worldwide. ( Source : Statista )

-  Cybersecurity spending worldwide totaled $93 billion in 2017. (Source: PWC)

At the rate that these figures are increasing, we can almost guarantee that these numbers will have changed by 2022 — and likely drastically so. However, the figures themselves highlight one of the biggest challenges to cybersecurity today: there are simply too many vulnerabilities for companies and countries to keep up with, let alone protect against cyber threats. Truly understanding the scope of these network vulnerabilities can help us focus on what needs to be done to improve cybersecurity. Here are some data points to consider:

-  At least one cyberattack occurs every three seconds. ( Source : PWC )

- For every 1,000 attacks, only two are discovered by human monitoring. ( Source : PWC )

- According to IBM , there were a billion records breached in 2016, including over 500 million U.S. records. ( Source : IBM )

- Some estimate that 90% of cybersecurity breaches are the result of human error and negligence, rather than malicious intent.

‍

Source: What Does It Mean To ‘Invest In Cybersecurity’ In 2022 And Beyond? (forbes.com)