Modern organisations are spending more on cybersecurity than ever. Gartner estimated global end-user spending on information security at US$213 billion in 2025, up from US$193 billion in 2024, and forecast a 12.5% rise to US$240 billion in 2026.
And this is a good thing considering that ASD’s ACSC received more than 82,000 cybercrime reports in 2025–26 – on average one every 6 minutes. Never before has it been more important to shield your company from cyber threats.
But at the end of the day, you only have a finite cybersecurity budget. Therefore, it’s crucial to allocate resources effectively and spend your money wisely. This is true for businesses of all sizes—especially for SMBs.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to get the absolute most from your cybersecurity budget so that the money you invest goes the furthest.
Benchmarking can be an extremely helpful way to begin. Knowing where other companies are spending their money can offer insights into which aspects of cybersecurity are most important.
A 2016 SANS Institute survey on IT security spending trends is one example: it found that organisations were mainly buying technologies to support secure access, malware prevention and endpoint security, with data protection ranked fourth.
While this doesn’t mean that spending on these exact technologies is right for every company, it does suggest the order of importance for organisations on average. In turn, this can serve as a nice starting point when deciding which elements of cybersecurity most deserve your attention.
By analysing this data, there are two types of cybersecurity technology that appear to be most important across the board:
That survey is now several years old, so treat it as a historical benchmark. For Australian organisations, ASD’s Essential Eight offers a current set of eight mitigation strategies – including multi-factor authentication, patching and regular backups – that helps organisations focus security efforts and better manage cyber risk.
Therefore, these are likely areas where you’ll want to spend a sizeable percentage of your cybersecurity budget.
Besides that, the following areas are also worth assessing:
So these technologies are definitely worth your attention if you’re wondering where to allocate your resources.
At this point, we’ve discussed how organisations are spending their money and which areas of cybersecurity deserve priority. That’s a great starting point, but doesn’t tell the whole story.
What’s important is that you take an in-depth look at the current state of your company’s cybersecurity to determine what must be addressed in order to mitigate your risk. Although you certainly want your security to be comprehensive, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able address every tiny detail. Therefore, you need to prioritise your strategy so that any major vulnerabilities are resolved.
How do you go about this?
For starters, you’ll want to take a look at any prior issues you’ve had in the past. If you’ve had the misfortune of suffering a cyber attack, you can at least use the experience to fortify your defences for the future.
Say for example your company dealt with a data breach that was the result of a malicious insider. In this case, your primary goal might be to implement more sophisticated access and authentication controls to keep non-intended individuals from accessing sensitive data.
Next, take a look at your most critical vulnerabilities. Are you seeing the same issues pop up again and again when scanning your network? Are you getting the same type of alerts?
These are warnings that one or more areas of your cybersecurity is lacking, which means you’ll want to make it a top priority.
Finally, it’s wise to have a professional service provider perform a risk assessment in order to get a better idea of what your current state of security is like. This will help you better understand your current system/environment and pinpoint critical risks through analysis of the data collected.
Risk Assessment is executed using a combination of techniques, which include:
An added advantage is that an expert can help you identify which particular products are most relevant for your needs and offer advice on new technologies that can help enhance security.
It’s also helpful to take a look at how successful (or unsuccessful) current or previous expenditures have been.
Maybe you spent a good chunk of money on an advanced network traffic visibility tool and it worked out beautifully. It allowed you to proactively detect threats and keep your entire network safer. The ROI should justify your spending.
On the other hand, maybe you invested in a mobile device management solution to keep track of and secure your staff’s mobile devices but found that it was overkill and didn’t result in the ROI you were looking for.
Whatever the case may be, take note of the success and failure of these technologies because this too should provide you with insight into where your cybersecurity budget will be best spent.
Just as it’s important to know what to spend your money on, it’s equally as important to know what not to spend it on. Often, you can reduce expenses by identifying processes that aren’t really critical to your overall cybersecurity infrastructure.
For example, if the ROI of a mobile device management solution was paltry, you would want to consider eliminating it and funnelling that money into another technology.
Or maybe you currently have a cybersecurity specialist working in-house whose salary is tying up a lot of your budget. You may want to consider downsizing and outsourcing these tasks to a cybersecurity firm instead. Often this route can achieve the same or even better results but at a lower cost.
Whatever the case, taking note of your cybersecurity expenses (especially major ones) and measuring their effectiveness should help you pinpoint those that aren’t carrying their weight. From there you can decide which ones to eliminate.
By now you know where companies are spending the most money on average and which areas deserve priority. You should also have a pretty good idea of which aspects of cybersecurity most demand your attention within your organisation, which investments have paid off in the past and which expenses you could potentially eliminate.
The final step is to synthesise all of this information and set your cybersecurity budget around it.
Maybe after seeing that advanced malware protection ranks among the top areas of spending and after personally dealing with ransomware, you’ll come to the conclusion that it’s in your best interest to devote the largest percentage of your budget to preventing malware attacks.
The goal here is to think objectively about your situation and use your data to figure out where your money will be best spent. When it’s all said and done, your cybersecurity budget should align with your organisation’s needs and priorities.
This way you’re getting the most bang for your buck and will know for certain that every dollar is being spent wisely on the right areas.
According to ASD’s Annual Cyber Threat Report 2025–26, the average self-reported cost of cybercrime per report for Australian businesses rose 16% to $93,500, with small businesses averaging $55,400 and medium businesses $141,300.
This is tangible proof that cybersecurity isn’t something you want to skimp on. But if you’re an SMB with limited resources, you’re almost guaranteed to have some budgetary restrictions meaning that you have to pick and choose where to spend your money.
Following the strategy outlined here should help aid in your decision-making process to ensure that you’re adequately protected against common attacks without it costing a fortune. At the same time, you’ll be able to maximise your ROI and make each dollar go further.
Ready to proactively take charge of your cybersecurity? Talk to a consultant!
There is no single right percentage, because the right budget depends on your risks, the value of the data and systems you hold, and your legal and contractual obligations. A practical starting point is a risk assessment, then funding the controls that address your biggest risks first. For context, ASD’s Annual Cyber Threat Report 2025–26 put the average self-reported cost of cybercrime per report at $55,400 for small businesses and $141,300 for medium businesses.
Yes. ASD warns that when a device, application or system reaches end of support, it no longer receives security updates, so known vulnerabilities may remain unpatched. ASD’s key actions are to check when your devices and software will reach end of support, upgrade to supported products, keep automatic updates enabled and isolate unsupported products until they can be replaced. Planning these replacements ahead avoids rushed spending later.
ASD’s Small Business Cyber Security Handbook, published in October 2026, sets out practical steps on topics such as fundamental security controls, staff education, restricting access and testing incident response plans. ASD also offers Exercise in a Box, a free resource for planning and running cyber security exercises, with discussion-based scenarios that take 30 to 120 minutes. Using free guidance like this helps a limited budget go further.
ASD says regular backups that are tested and stored separately from your main systems are one of the most effective ways to reduce the impact of a ransomware attack. Because ransomware commonly spreads through phishing emails, malicious links and compromised accounts, staff awareness and strong account security, such as multi-factor authentication, also matter. No single product will stop every attack, so layered controls are the safer investment.
Security ROI is rarely a straight profit figure, so measure how much risk an investment reduces. Useful indicators include how quickly vulnerabilities are patched, whether recurring alerts or findings disappear, how fast incidents are detected and contained, and whether audit or compliance gaps close. Compare those results with the cost of the control and the likely cost of the incidents it helps prevent.