IBM Report: Most US Taxpayers Prefer Higher Federal Funding for Local Cybersecurity Efforts

A new study from IBM’s security arm has found that the majority of U.S. citizens want to see increased federal funding to support local government’s efforts to fortify cybersecurity.

The report, facilitated by market research firm Morning Consult, discovered that 90 percent of the 2.2K respondents are in favor of the federal government providing more funding for cybersecurity efforts rather than having local governments shoulder such costs, IBM said Thursday.

In addition, the study found that more than half of the respondents don’t support the local government’s use of taxpayer dollars to pay off ransomware attacks and would prefer that the funding go into recovery costs instead.

“One common misconception is that paying the ransom immediately solves the problem, however doing so doesn’t always guarantee swift recovery of infected devices,” said Wendi Whitmore, vice president at IBM Security’s X-Force Threat Intelligence segment. “It requires significant time and investment to decrypt devices, and there’s always the chance that paying criminals still won’t result in unlocked files at all.”

According to the study, 75 percent of respondents fear ransomware attacks to personal data while almost 80 percent are concerned over the spread of ransomware threats across the country.