Flow Chart:

Proposal Outline:

Question: My research question is whether  the cost of protecting consumer data is higher than the cost of a breach.

Hypothesis: My hypothesis is that the financial cost of data breaches is lower than the cost of expanding an IT department to become large enough to prevent them, however the potential reputation loss from a breach prevents companies from taking the approach of completely downscaling cybersecurity investment.

Introduction

• Go over the reasoning behind consumer data protection, describe why it is important to companies and consumers alike.
• Put into perspective the issue of potentially overspending or underspending on a company’s Information Technology department, too much spending and money may go to waste, too little spending and the company may lose money, thus companies need to focus on finding the equilibrium for perfect spending.
• Discuss the purpose of my proposal, analyzing whether retail companies can cut back on their cybersecurity spending by taking two equally sized companies in the same sector and having one cut its spending on cybersecurity while the other maintains current spending
• Make it clear to the reader that the more studies conducted in this same manor, the closer we will be to finding the perfect equilibrium to avoid overspending on cybersecurity.

Balacing the Budget on Cybersecurity Spending (Literature Review):

• Outline the costs and causes of these cyber incidents(Romanosky, Sasha (2016))
• Showcase the framework for determining how much to spend on Information Technology and Cybersecurity. (Spruit, Marco, and Wouter de Bruijn, 2012)
• Discuss the reputation loss and negative publicity factor of a data breach.(Information Management Journal, 50(6), 7, 2016)
• Explain the threshold for spending on Information Technology and how most companies try to cut back on it as much as possible.(International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, vol. 6, no. 3, July-Sept. 2012)
• Describe to the audience to the issue with declining costs of data breaches allowing companies to cut back on spending to protect their customers. (Information Management Journal, 46(4), 14, 2012)

Methodology

• Two companies that deal with a large amount of credit card sales, best candidates would be stores.
• Pretest by comparing the losses of each company yearly to data breaches/leaks.
• 1 group has a substantial decrease in funding for cybersecurity
• Post-test to see if additional funding for cybersecurity pays itself off or if funds can be cut.
• Finding the “sweet spot” for how much money should be spent on security.

Discussion

• Future studies
  • Comparing an increase in infrastructure spending to a decrease rather than comparing a decrease to the normal spending levels.
  • Compare different size companies, see how cuts in data protection spending effect larger versus smaller companies.
• Outline the situation with insurance companies and how they enable companies to take losses in data protection.
• Talk about finding the “sweet spot” for how much money should be spent on security.
• Saving face during losses, discuss how companies can avoid reputation destruction by making their brand seem more concerned about their customers’ data protection than they really are.(Information Management Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2015, p. 8)

References

Spruit, Marco, and Wouter de Bruijn. CITS: the Cost of IT Security Framework. International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, vol. 6, no. 4, Oct.-Dec. 2012, pp. 94+. Gale OneFile: Computer Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A322564618/CDB?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-CDB&xid=c46b6c81. Accessed 22 Apr. 2022.

Data breaches cost more than money. (2016, November-December). Information Management Journal, 50(6), 7. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A499915176/CDB?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-CDB&xid=95f4dd2e

Executives say–but don’t act like–data security is vital. Information Management Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2015, p. 8. Gale OneFile: Computer Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A420929524/CDB?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-CDB&xid=6d4e8669. Accessed 22 Apr. 2022.

Eisenga, Amanda, et al. Investing in IT security: how to determine the maximum threshold. International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, vol. 6, no. 3, July-Sept. 2012, pp. 75+. Gale OneFile: Computer Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A311851552/CDB?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-CDB&xid=536e608a. Accessed 22 Apr. 2022.

Data breaches may be up, but costs are down. (2012, July-August). Information Management Journal, 46(4), 14. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A319975184/CDB?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-CDB&xid=31d5ed12

Romanosky, Sasha (2016), Examining the costs and causes of cyber incidents, Journal of Cybersecurity (Vol 2., Issue 2) https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=28&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=4&docId=GALE%7CA610763496&docType=Report&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZCDB&prodId=CDB&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA610763496&searchId=R7&userGroupName=klnb_fhsuniv&inPS=true