Necessity is still mother of cybersecurity invention
Barracuda Networks, Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
Most cybersecurity teams are experiencing the same economic challenges as anyone else as it becomes more challenging to convince senior business leaders that now is the time to fund additional investments.
In fact, a survey of 587 CISOs conducted by IANS Research and Artico Search, an executive search firm, finds security budget growth dropped to 4%, down from 8% in 2024, with more than half reporting flat or shrinking budgets.
Security budgets as a percentage of IT spending also declined from 11.9% to 10.9%, breaking a five-year upward trend. Staffing growth, meanwhile, slowed to 7%, with only 11% of CISOs reporting being adequately staffed. The remaining 89% describe their teams as stretched thin or understaffed, leading to serious organizational risk given the expanding scope of security requirements, the survey finds.