Cybersecurity for Automation, Control and SCADA systems is becoming one of the most important fields of study in the world today. The industrial world is moving towards Industrie 4.0 and the internet of things, interconnecting entire industrial companies and syncing them to cloud-based solutions. Cyber-criminals are actively making hundreds of thousands of dollars every single day from holding the data from these industries ransom.IBM Security has released a report of how much hacking is costing the cyber security industry. The report revealed that a major data breach could see companies parting with $4 million per data breach.
Globally, cyber crime is accounting for $400 billion per year, according to British insurance company, Lloyd. The United States government has secured $14 billion to combat cyber security attacks in the country that could save the data of countless companies. Studying toward a cyber security qualification could see an engineer or IT specialist making a pretty penny with ensuring that 
industries remain safe from cyber crime. We recently reported that cybersecurity education in the United States specifically is not up to scratch. Hopefully, the money budgeted will go towards the educating of cyber security professionals.
"Cybersecurity incidents continue to grow in both volume and sophistication, with 64 percent more security incidents reported in 2015 than in 2014," said Amanda Carl, IBM's corporate communications officer.
Their report further indicated that noticing a breach could take up to 201 days and the containment of a breach could take up to 70 days, on average.
IBM's CEO and President Ginni Rommety said: "We believe that data is the phenomenon of our time. It is the world's new natural resource. It is is the new basis of competitive advantage, and it is transforming every profession and industry. If all of this is true - even inevitable - then cyber crime, by definition, is the greatest threat to every profession, every industry, every company in the world."
The Dean of Engineering at the Engineering Institute of Technology, Steve Mackay, said that his institution sees 10 to 20 attempts at infiltrating their online systems every week. He confirmed this in his YouTube series, the Engineering News Network. He goes on to explain that industrial networks are vulnerable and expressed dismay surrounding the shortage of cyber security experts. He said: "Industrial networks for your PLCs and other hardware used to be proprietary. Now, they're open with ethernet,TCPIP and of course, are a whole lot more vulnerable to hacking. We all access the cloud now, which means that your information has to traverse a very public network, so it raises your profile in terms of attacks. We need to design - into everything we do, both individually and holistically - some sort of cyber security. So, concepts such as security in depth, you need to understand and apply to your systems"
The IBM report further indicated that companies who invested into cyber security companies to prevent or remedy cyber crime have saved the companies $400,000. IBM found that data breaches that were remedied in 100 days only cost companies $3.23 million. Data breaches discovered before 100 days only cost $1 million.
The real question is: Is $14 billion enough investment into the research of cyber security, that claims $400 billion of damage every year? Let us know in our comments section.
Source: IBM
