The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), an industry consortium dedicated to reducing cyber-risk in the global financial system, said that some 73 percent of Chief Information and Security Officers (CISOs) of financial institutions plan to ask their organization’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for an increase in cybersecurity investments in the next year.

“The advancement and adoption of new technologies coupled with increased geopolitical tension has fueled a rapidly evolving cyber-threat landscape,” said Steve Silberstein, Chief Executive Officer of FS-ISAC. “An effective cybersecurity program needs to adapt to this environment and funding must be deemed as a cross-functional investment.”

The survey also found that 56 percent of the respondents said 10 percent or less of their organization’s overall budget is dedicated to cybersecurity. Of that 10 percent, a majority (54 percent) cited IT infrastructure and asset management as the area that receives the most funding. The three areas that receive the least amount of funding include employee training and education (four percent), vendor management (six percent) and business continuity (nine percent).

“Institutions are now finding vulnerabilities across other functions of the business with employees and third-party vendors becoming areas of increasing concern,” said Silberstein. “A holistic approach to cyber is critical to mitigate current and long-term risks.”

FS-ISAC conducted a survey of more than 300 CISOs of financial institutions at its Annual Summit in Orlando, Florida on April 28-May 1, 2019 to gauge industry sentiment and changes on cybersecurity budget allocations.

Additional key findings include:

• Of the total cybersecurity budget, 27 percent of respondents surveyed cited regulatory requirements (14 percent) and risk management and governance (13 percent) as areas that receive the most funding within their organization.
• Seventy-one percent said their organization’s incident response plan is tested across the organization once a year, compared to 29 percent that reported that it is only tested within the IT environment once a year.
• Seventeen percent of respondents said they also plan to ask to expand their cybersecurity budget by 2021.