Security more important than cost controls: IT Managers

A survey earlier this year of 933 U.S. and Canadian companies found that more

than three quarters of the respondents rated security as an "extremely or

very significant" concern or IT challenge for their organizations,

International Data Corp. said.

"Our latest survey findings indicate that IT spending on security and

business continuity has increased at 59 percent of organizations in the last 12

months," IDC analyst Lucie Draper said in a statement. "We believe

that despite the economic environment, and in some cases because of the

geopolitical environment, the prospects for vendors of security technologies are

good."

Other findings included that corporate compliance and government regulations

related to security and privacy remained of particular concern to the banking

and the healthcare services industries.

The new research by IDC shows that security has become more important than

cost-control and cost containment issues. The latest Enterprise Technology

Trends (ETT) survey was conducted by IDC between April and May 2004, with a

response from 939 U.S. and Canadian companies.






Over three quarters of IT and business executives rate security as an extremely
or very significant concern for their organizations.

"Our latest survey findings indicate that IT spending on security and

business continuity has increased at 59% of organizations in the last 12

months," said Lucie Draper, program manager for IDC's Enterprise

Technology Trends, Vertical Markets Group. "We believe that despite the

economic environment, and in some cases because of the geopolitical

environment, the prospects for vendors of security technologies are

good."






Among the key findings presented in IDC's latest ETT survey are the
following:

• IDC found that the biggest difference between organizations that have a
  
  corporate IT security officer and those that do not have someone in that
  
  position is whether security policies and procedures are in place, namely an
  
  organization-wide disaster recovery and business continuity strategy and
  
  regular security risk analyses, security auditing, or security status
  
  tracking.

• Ubiquitous access to the Internet followed by a reaction to a major
  
  security breach at one's company were most frequently rated as having a high
  
  influence on an organization's investments in security technology and
  
  deployment of security measures.

• Four in ten North American organizations rated security audit results as
  
  having a high influence on the deployment of security measures.

• Corporate compliance and government regulations as they relate to security
  
  and privacy remain of particular concern to the banking and the healthcare
  
  services industries.

• One or more of an array of security technologies are in some stage of
  
  adoption at most companies. While some technologies, such as antiviral
  
  tools, are already in place at the vast majority of North American
  
  companies, others are at different stages of the evaluation or
  
  implementation process, and in some cases these vary markedly by industry
  
  segment.