According to new research by World Economic Forum, this amount would equal the GDP of the world's third largest economy, highlighting the scale of the issue.

However, global research and advisory firm Gartner has raised concerns over the ability for business to protect themselves, with IT spend expected to fall 8% this year, and security and risk management only expected to grow by 2.4%, lower than the projected growth rate of 8.7% earlier this year.

Among the cybersecurity segments expected to grow fastest is cloud security augmenting, with this set to increase by 33% as more companies to turn to the technology as a way of protecting their business.

Juta Gurinaviciute, chief technology officer at NordVPN Teams, which specialises in cloud-based VPN, is keen to see the technology rolled out on a wider to scale to help companies already hit financially by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis.

“Awareness of cybersecurity risks is growing, and more companies are allocating resources to cyber risk management,” Gurinaviciute explains, adding: “But cybersecurity spending is far from where it needs to be, given the monumental scale - and urgency - of the threat.

Gurinaviciute adds that with the increase in cyberattacks, organisations are continuing to spend more on security, but without a focused cybersecurity strategy, they often spend it in the wrong areas.

“Just increasing spending won’t solve the problem if it isn’t properly aligned with the threats that business faces or could face in the future,” Gurinaviciute says.

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