Ask any product manager about their biggest budget headaches, and security will likely make the top three. It’s easy to see why. Security investments feel like insurance premiums, necessary but painful expenses that drain resources from feature development and innovation. But what if that perception is completely wrong?

Security can either be your biggest margin killer or your most powerful profit enabler. From the beginning, our goal at RunSafe has been to put control back into the hands of the defenders. And that means building solutions that meaningfully reduce risk across your product portfolio. As cyber defense champions, we can quantify economic benefits to security solutions that improve your product line profitability.

Listen to the audio overview below: 

 

The Cost of Reactive Security

Security incidents now average $4.88 million per breach according to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, but that figure only scratches the surface. The real damage comes from the operational drag that reactive security creates long before any breach occurs.

Consider an example from a software manufacturer, one of RunSafe’s customers. Implementing RunSafe’s runtime code protection saved the company over $1 million per year, with reduced patching representing the largest cost saving. 

Calculate your potential Total Cost of Ownership here.

Being proactive about security (deploying RunSafe Protect) rather than reactive (relying on patching) saved this company a significant amount of money. And it’s not just money. It’s also about opportunity cost.

The hidden costs of reactive security include:

• R&D Resource Drain: Effort is put into code scanning/review, penetration testing, subsequent remediation, and then coordinated release of patches to customers. These issues spawn lengthy retesting cycles and gobble up R&D resources that would otherwise be able to work on new features and products.
• Market Access Barriers: Companies lose significant contracts when their security posture can’t meet customer requirements. Consider how Zoom was initially excluded from certain DoD environments due to its security posture not meeting baseline requirements.
• Developer Productivity Loss: Engineering teams spend 30-40% of their time on security remediation instead of innovation.

Competitive Disadvantage: Slower release cycles compared to competitors, who ship features faster with built-in security.

Are You Spending to Patch or Investing to Prevent?

The problem with scan-and-patch security is inefficiency and ineffectiveness. For example, in our work on embedded devices, we see on the daily that memory safety vulnerabilities account for 40-70% of identified vulnerabilities in embedded code. 

A study by North Carolina State University shows that for Linux operating system software over a 10-year period, only 2.5% of memory vulnerabilities were identified in vulnerability scanning tools. This shows us that scanning, a widely adopted practice, leaves one vulnerable.

Similarly, multiple studies say companies and users generally aren’t patching on time due to a lack of knowledge, the effort to coordinate change, the process slowing progress, fear of breaking the current setup, and other barriers. At its best, patching is reactive. More often, costs and other barriers mean patching is delayed, if done at all.

Even when vulnerabilities are found, patching faces massive barriers:

• Coordination Costs: Cross-team alignment, testing cycles, and deployment logistics
• Customer Resistance: Nobody wants to patch, especially when it might break existing functionality
• Timing Mismatches: Critical vulnerabilities discovered right before major releases
• Risk Accumulation: Delayed patches create growing attack surfaces

The math is brutal. If you’re patching reactively, you’re not just paying for the patch—you’re paying for the disruption, the delays, the testing cycles, and the opportunity costs of having your best engineers chasing down someone else’s vulnerabilities instead of building your next breakthrough feature.

The Runtime Security Advantage

Here’s where the economics flip completely. Runtime security—integrating code protection directly into your development process—transforms security from a margin killer to a competitive advantage.

RunSafe’s approach demonstrates this transformation. RunSafe Protect eliminates an entire class of vulnerability common in embedded software to defend your software from the very beginning and dramatically reduce your attack surface. Protect safeguards your systems during runtime without compromising performance or requiring post-deployment modifications.

The results speak for themselves. RunSafe deployed code protection to dramatically reduce the attack surface by 70% for an industrial automation leader deploying HMI products. The company was able to measurably reduce risk and protect software in very difficult-to-update facilities within critical infrastructure.

Understand the total exposure of your embedded software and quantify your risk reductions with RunSafe Protect. Give your code a scan.

The broader business impact includes:

• Faster Time-to-Market: No more security-driven delays in release cycles
• Predictable Operations: Controlled patch timing instead of emergency responses
• Enhanced Customer Relationships: Fewer disruptions, more reliable products
• Engineering Focus: Teams building features instead of fixing vulnerabilities
• Market Differentiation: Security as a selling point, not a compliance checkbox

Security as a Revenue Driver

Beyond cost savings, the right security approach actually opens new revenue streams. Companies with robust security profiles win contracts that others can’t touch. In RunSafe Security’s 2025 Medical Device Cybersecurity Index, we saw that 83% of healthcare organizations now integrate cybersecurity standards directly into their RFPs and 46% have declined to purchase medical devices due to cybersecurity concerns. A lack of security quickly leads to lost revenue in this competitive market. 

On the other hand, it opens the door to increased product line profitability. 79% of healthcare buyers are willing to pay a premium for devices with advanced runtime protection. Similarly in the automotive industry, RunSafe’s 2025 Connected Car Cyber Safety & Security Survey, 87% of survey participants said a car brand that offers strong cybersecurity and privacy would influence their purchase decision, with 35% willing to pay more.

Customers are saying security is worth the cost. That’s good news for product teams looking to make smart investments.

The Bottom Line

Security doesn’t have to be a necessary evil that drains profitability. When implemented early, systematically, and with business impact in mind, security becomes a competitive advantage that drives margin improvement and sustainable growth.

The companies that figure this out first will have operational advantages their competitors can’t match: faster development cycles, lower operational costs, stronger customer relationships, and access to markets that others can’t reach.

Can you afford to keep subsidizing reactive security approaches that are killing your margins and slowing your growth?

See how runtime security can transform your product line profitability. Calculate your potential ROI with RunSafe Protect or schedule a call with our team to discuss your specific business impact.