The real price of Security

This report analyzes the impact of security, both cyber and physical, on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). A key finding of the report is that an increase of $16 billion in energy investments can be achieved by implementing incremental improvements on cybersecurity.

Another important finding is that in North America, more than $12.34 billion in economic value can be added to the economy through improvements in cybersecurity systems.

For cybersecurity and physical security systems integration, there is a huge opportunity to unlock economic value. The original econometric model developed for this report finds that each 1% improvement on the overall level of cybersecurity can lead to higher growth in the transport, storage and communications industry by an estimated:

1. $36 billion globally
2. $12.34 billion in North America
3. $2 billion in the Middle East
4. $890 million in India

These findings imply that security improvements in modern cyber-physical systems for CNI (not only in energy or transport, storage and communications) can have multiple economic benefits.

Many papers highlight the need for integration between cyber and physical security systems in CNI. This is because physical systems can be a point of entry for cyberattacks; and also, because cyberattacks can lead to physical attacks, from workplace interruptions to loss of life. An integrated cyber-physical security solution can provide multiple benefits like:

• Integration of many separate security systems, both cyber and physical, which will lead to better security, minimizing risks and increasing organizational resilience.
• Better management of big data generated by systems.
• Improvements to cyber-physical security overall, which will lead to better performance through its AI-based decision-making and decision-executing system.

The report also finds that there is a negative correlation between digital and economic growth. This happens because of many different factors, including the fact that cyberattacks on new digital systems can lead to interruptions and stall growth. In order for a country or organization to be able to harness the power of new digital technologies, a corresponding level of security needs to be in place.