Cybersecurity Budgets Need Not Increase: HardSec Option
By
Branko Terzic
Cybersecurity budgets have been untouched by budget cuts in past years and continue to be unaffected this year as well according to the weekend Wall Street Journal. Reporter James Rundle provided a summary of recent reports and writes that “Cybersecurity Spending Grows” (WSJ Sep 30-Oct 1).
The article indicated that one survey reveals that publicly traded companies reported that cybersecurity budget increased by 100% between 2019 to 2023. Another survey reported that cybersecurity budgets are up 14% over last year in 2003.
That is not a surprise as Fortune magazine reported that there are currently 700,000 unfilled positions in cybersecurity in the US alone even with cybersecurity salaries increasing by more than 7% between 2021 and 2022.
The WSJ article referred to expenditures on annual and recurring software protection services offered by software vendors and service suppliers. The reason budgets must increase is because, as noted, labor costs are increasing, and software cybersecurity providers are engaged in an ongoing back and forth struggle with increasingly aggressive and well finance hackers including state-controlled enterprises and agencies.
Hackers exploit weaknesses in new programs and explore for weaknesses in patches to old programs. In 2019 computer security pioneer Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the Russian based Kaspersky software protection systems implied that the problem of fighting software breaches with software defense is ongoing.
“The essence of cyberimmunity is to employ a level of protection such that the cost of an attack on a company exceeds the costs of possible damages. Nowadays, no serious cybersecurity expert can give a 100% protection guarantee.”
The best cybersecurity firms can do is to promise to quickly identify breaches and make timely repairs closing the breaches. Thus, as Kaspersky implies -breaches will continue.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that an alternative hardware-based defense against cyber-attacks is commercially available. This hardware approach involves a one-time investment with no need to incur the large and escalating annual expenses of future monitoring of software by cybersecurity specialists. The hardware-based protection system blocks breach attempts as hackers cannot penetrate a hardwired chip with their software attacks.
Q Net offers such hardware cybersecurity protection with its Q Box product. The Q Box units are “plug n play” which require no adjustments to current software.
Q Box hardware security is immune from constant updating and patching and does not need to follow the DHS CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities) Catalog; nor do organizations need to be constantly vigilant watching the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) as one must for all other (software) solutions.
Q Net is a client, and I am pleased to report that their hardware has passed tests prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as well as US defense agencies.
The Honorable Branko Terzic is a former Commissioner on the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and State of Wisconsin Public Service Commission, in addition to energy industry experience was a US Army Reserve Foreign Area Officer ( FAO) for Eastern Europe (1979-1990). He hold a BS Engineering and honorary Doctor of Sciences in Engineering (h.c.) both from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.
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