The Trends in Information Security Spending

Cisco Systems at Infosecurity Europe 2004

According to the latest industry research comissioned by Cisco Systems, businesses still don’t spend enough money on Information Security.

IDC whitepaper based on this research, clearly shows that Network Security gets less than 5% of the total IT spend. The figures show that in 2003 companies invested $42 billion in security solutions and for comparison purposes, for the same period, $43 billion was spent just on printers and multifunctional peripherals.

Some of the key points highlighted in the mentioned IDC whitepaper, titled “Security – Embedded in the Heart of Your Business” are:

• companies should adopt the holistic approach to securing their networks
• rate of change of security threats demands continuous management of upgrades to security solutions
• expired email or user accounts may be upwards of 60% of all accounts on corporate systems, which makes companies more insecure and raises the administration costs
• security best practice starts and ends at the network.

IDC predicts that the total spend on security technology worldwide will exceed $48 billion in 2004 and that security market should increase from 4.8% to 7% of the overall IT budget in 2007. The good news for the mobile security market is that because of a strong demand for remote access, this part of the industry is predicted a rise of 71% annualy, representing a $1.27 billion market by 2007.