PwC Survey: Over three quarters of the companies expect that the budget for investments in cyber security increase in 2025

More than three-quarters (77%) of companies surveyed by PwC globally expect their cybersecurity investment budget to grow in the next year, due to the expansion of vulnerabilities in the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), as well as cloud technology and the Internet of Things (connected devices).   According to Global Digital Trust Insights 2025, almost one third (30%) of the organisations expect that the budget increase by 6 to 10% next year, while a fifth (19%) estimate an increase of 11% or more.‘Although there is expectation that the budgets to increase, the study confirms a well-known situation – many times, communication between the informatics security officers and the general managers of the companies where they work continues to be difficult where cyber priorities are not discussed in terms of costs, opportunity and risk. The results of the survey of this year show, for example, that there are significant differences in the perception of the two positions on the capacity of their company to comply with the regulations in the area of informatics security. Cyber security officers are on the front line. Their responses are less optimistic than the responses of CEOs in terms of their organisations' ability to meet compliance requirements on artificial intelligence, resilience and critical infrastructure," said Mircea Bozga, partner, PwC Romania, quoted in a company statement. Firms surveyed see investment in cybersecurity as a key differentiator to gain competitive advantage, with 57% citing customer trust and 49% citing brand integrity and loyalty as the main drivers for such investment. In parallel, cybersecurity regulations are also a driver of investment - with 96% reporting that such regulations have increased their investment budgets in the last 12 months.The top four cyber attacks considered most worrying are cloud threats, hacking and data leakage, third-party breaches and attacks on connected devices.   As answer to the issues of cybersecurity they face, 78% of the interviewed companies say they increased investments in GenAI over the last twelve months, and 72% increased investments in managing AI governance risks. Although leveraging GenAI has become very important for cyber resilience strategies, organisations face several challenges when incorporating this technology, mainly stemming from the company's existing systems/processes (39%) and the lack of standardised internal policies governing its use (37%), the source cited.   The PwC 2025 Global Digital Trust Insights is a survey of more than 4,000 business and technology executives in 77 countries and territories, conducted from May to July 2024. The regional distribution is as follows: Western Europe (30%), North America (25%), Asia Pacific (18%), Latin America (12%), Central and Eastern Europe (6%), Africa (5%) and the Middle East (3%).   PwC is a network of firms in 151 countries with more than 360,000 professionals providing audit, tax and business advisory services.