Thursday, 16 November 2006

7.3 Per cent of IT Budget Spent on Security

US enterprises will have spent USD 61 billion on security by the end of this year, representing 7.3 per cent of total IT spending in the US, a new report from Info-Tech Research Group states. While the IT departments will spend between USD 21- 27 billion on acquiring new security technologies and services, the rest will be spent on operations, primarily staffing costs, as per the report.

"IT security has become a higher priority over the last few years, with a greater proportion of the overall IT budget being spent on security equipment and services," said Ed Daugavietis, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group. "In the past year alone, 46 per cent of IT managers have increased spending on security compared to only four per cent who have decreased their level of security spend."

The study also found that enterprise spending on security and importance placed on security preparedness increases incrementally with the size of the company. The larger the company, the greater the per centage of the overall IT budget allocated to security.

"While many companies will have tactical reasons to exceed or under-spend compared to the average 7.3 per cent of IT budget, those that are spending in the five to ten per cent range can be assured that their budgeting is consistent with industry norms," said Daugavietis.

Companies spending less than five per cent of their IT budget on security might want to ask themselves hard questions about how they would recover from disaster or how well they are protecting their networks from intrusions, he concluded.