Why 'Good Enough' Cybersecurity Is Your Most Expensive Option in 2026

In this article:

• The False Economy of Minimal Security
• The Real Cost of "Good Enough" in 2026
• The 2026 Threat Landscape: Why This Year Is Different
• What Proper Cybersecurity Actually Costs (And Saves)
• Moving Beyond "Good Enough": Your Action Plan

Last month, a mid-sized manufacturing company called their insurance broker with routine news: they'd experienced a "minor" security incident. Nothing serious, just a weekend of downtime and a few thousand dollars in emergency consulting fees.

The insurance company disagreed. After investigating inadequate multi-factor authentication, outdated endpoint protection, and an untested incident response plan, they denied the $2.1 million claim outright. The company's "good enough" security approach, which saved them roughly $30,000 annually, ultimately cost them over $2.9 million in denied coverage, recovery costs, and emergency upgrades they should have implemented years earlier.

As we enter 2026, the gap between "good enough" cybersecurity and actual protection has never been more expensive. Here's why settling for adequate security is the most costly decision you can make this year.

The False Economy of Minimal Security

When CompTIA surveyed cybersecurity professionals in 2025, they uncovered a dangerous paradox: while 78% of organizations cite cybersecurity as their highest priority, the feeling that their current approach is "good enough" ranks as the second-greatest challenge in improving security.¹

This complacency stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what cybersecurity failure actually costs your business.

The mathematics are stark: The average ransomware payout doubled from Q1 to Q2 of 2025, while insider threats cost $17.4 million annually.¹ Yet organizations continue approaching cybersecurity like office supplies seeking the minimum viable solution rather than optimal protection.

The problem? In cybersecurity, minimum viable often means maximum vulnerable.

The Real Cost of "Good Enough" in 2026

Let's examine what "good enough" actually costs when it fails. According to IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the global average breach cost $4.44 million.² For organizations with inadequate security, the numbers are worse:

The Price Tag of Inadequate Security:

Organizations without AI and automation in their security stack paid $1.9 million more per breach and took 80 days longer to recover.²

The Hidden Costs Nobody Discusses:

Beyond ransom payments and breach notifications, "good enough" security creates cascading financial consequences:

• Insurance complications: 92% of U.S. businesses saw cyber insurance requirements become significantly stricter, with many discovering their coverage was worthless when needed³
• Competitive disadvantage: Organizations with mature cybersecurity are winning contracts because their security posture eliminates supply chain risk
• Regulatory exposure: Compliance failures add $1.22 million to total breach costs²
• Extended downtime: 80 extra days of lost productivity, customer erosion, and reputation damage

The Complacency Cycle:

Here's how "good enough" becomes catastrophically expensive:

1. You save $30,000-$50,000 annually avoiding "unnecessary" security investments
2. Months pass without incident, validating your approach
3. The threat landscape evolves beyond your defenses
4. A breach occurs, undetected for 180+ days
5. What could have been prevented with a $50,000 investment becomes a $4 million crisis

CompTIA research reveals executives rate incidents as having severe impact far more than IT staff—because they see the direct bottom-line consequences: new hardware purchases, software licenses, fraud services, legal fees, regulatory fines, and reputation damage.¹

The 2026 Threat Landscape: Why This Year Is Different

As we enter 2026, the convergence of multiple threat vectors makes "good enough" security more dangerous than ever.

AI-Powered Attacks Reach Critical Mass:

In 2026, AI is the primary force multiplier for attackers:

• What previously took 16 hours to craft (a sophisticated phishing email) now takes AI just 5 minutes²
• 47% of organizations have experienced deepfake attacks, making social engineering nearly impossible to detect⁴
• Agentic AI systems enable attackers to conduct reconnaissance and execute attacks with minimal human intervention

Your "good enough" email filtering was designed for human attackers working at human speed. AI operates at machine scale.

Cloud Vulnerabilities Multiply:

Security experts predict 2026 could be the year attackers pivot to enterprise cloud environments. Breaches spanning multiple environments cost an average of $5.05 million—versus $4.01 million for on-premises-only breaches.⁵

If your "good enough" security treats cloud as an afterthought, you're creating your most expensive blind spot.

Regulatory Requirements Tighten:

The days of security through obscurity are over. In 2026:

• The SEC requires detailed cybersecurity disclosure and board oversight documentation
• Cyber insurance providers demand proof of multi-factor authentication, endpoint detection and response, encrypted backups, and tested incident response plans
• Supply chain partners require cybersecurity certifications before signing contracts

What Proper Cybersecurity Actually Costs (And Saves)

Let's address the elephant in the room: proper cybersecurity requires investment. But when you compare the cost of protection to the cost of failure, the mathematics become unavoidable.

The Investment Comparison:

This assumes a single breach. Consider that 56% of organizations experienced severe or moderate impacts from cybersecurity incidents in 2025.¹

What Proper Security Actually Includes:

Foundation Layer (Non-Negotiable):

• Multi-factor authentication across all critical systems
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR) with 24/7 monitoring
• Encrypted, immutable backups stored offline
• Network segmentation to limit lateral movement

Intelligence Layer (Critical for Modern Threats):

• AI-powered threat detection and response
• Security information and event management (SIEM)
• Continuous vulnerability scanning and patch management
• Identity and access management with least-privilege principles

Resilience Layer (Your Insurance Policy):

• Tested incident response plan with defined roles
• Business continuity planning integrated with security
• Regular tabletop exercises simulating breach scenarios
• Cyber insurance with proper coverage and documented compliance

The total investment? For a mid-sized business, comprehensive protection typically ranges from $150,000-$300,000 annually—roughly 3-6% of IT budget. That's significantly less than the cost of a single breach.

Moving Beyond "Good Enough": Your Action Plan

The question isn't whether you can afford proper cybersecurity. The question is whether you can afford another year of "good enough."

Your 2026 Security Assessment:

Ask yourself these critical questions:

1. Can you detect a breach within 48 hours? The average detection time in 2025 was 181 days⁶—during which attackers had free reign of your systems.
2. Do you have AI governance policies in place? 63% of breached organizations in 2025 had no AI governance, and 97% of AI-related breaches involved organizations lacking proper AI access controls.²
3. Could you maintain operations if your primary systems were encrypted tomorrow? If your backup strategy involves hoping it won't happen to you, you don't have a strategy.
4. Does your cyber insurance actually cover you? Many organizations discover too late that their "good enough" security invalidated their coverage.
5. Is your board receiving regular security briefings in business terms? If cybersecurity is only discussed when something breaks, you're not managing risk.

The Path Forward:

Moving beyond "good enough" doesn't require a complete security overhaul on day one:

Start with visibility: Conduct a comprehensive security assessment that identifies your actual risk profile, not the one you hope you have.

Prioritize based on business impact: Focus first on protecting your most critical assets and addressing your most exploitable vulnerabilities.

Build incrementally but purposefully: Create a roadmap that moves you from reactive to proactive to predictive defense.

Measure what matters: Track time-to-detect, time-to-contain, and cost-per-incident. These business indicators matter more than technical measures.

Partner strategically: The cybersecurity skills gap hit 4.8 million unfilled roles globally in 2025.⁷ You need partners who bring both expertise and technology to fill your capability gaps.

Don't Let "Good Enough" Define Your 2026

The manufacturing company from our opening story eventually recovered, but it took 14 months, cost over $3 million, and required eliminating 15 positions. Their CEO later admitted that implementing the security measures their insurance required—investments totaling less than $100,000—would have prevented the breach entirely.

That's the true cost of "good enough" cybersecurity: not just the breach you experience, but the future you lose because of it.

As AI-powered attacks accelerate, cloud vulnerabilities multiply, and regulatory requirements tighten, 2026 will separate organizations that treated security as strategic from those that treated it as a checkbox. The former will gain competitive advantage and maintain customer trust. The latter will discover—expensively—why "good enough" was never enough at all.

At Sentry Technology Solutions, we've spent over a decade helping businesses move from reactive security to strategic protection. We understand that comprehensive cybersecurity isn't about having every tool—it's about having the right strategy, the right partners, and the right mindset to turn security from a cost center into a business enabler.

We don't offer "good enough." We offer guidance, partnership, and proven solutions that transform security from something you worry about into something that powers your growth.

Ready to discover what proper cybersecurity actually looks like for your organization? Let's start with an honest conversation about where you are, where you need to be, and how to get there.

Learn more about our comprehensive approach to modern cybersecurity at our Cybersecurity Solutions page, or contact us today for a complimentary security assessment.

Because in 2026, "good enough" isn't just inadequate—it's the most expensive option you'll never choose again.