IT Security Spending To Increase In 2010

January 28, 2010

Approximately 40 percent of businesses will significantly increase their spending on new IT security technologies in 2010. Forty-two percent of enterprises expect to increase IT security spending on new technologies by 5 percent or more this year, and 37 percent of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) expect to do the same. Forrester's survey of nearly 2,200 enterprise and SMB business executives and technology decision-makers in North America and Europe is part of Forrester's Business Data Services (BDS) series, which helps Vendor Strategy professionals profile their target market's budget allocation and technology adoption.

"As we move out of the recession, we expect to see security investments continue to grow, although the nature of that investment is changing," said Forrester Analyst and Vice President, Jonathan Penn.

While data security is perennially the largest budget item for IT organizations, the greatest spending increases are in the area of network security, where 40 percent of enterprises and 36 percent of SMBs expect to spend more in 2010.

Interestingly, the new technology trend of utmost concern to IT security professionals is not cloud computing or data virtualization; it's the consumerization of IT — the proliferation of consumer devices in the workplace. Nearly half of all enterprises (46 percent) noted their concerns about smartphones, while 38 percent of enterprises were concerned about Web 2.0 technologies. More than 80 percent of businesses — large and small — identified managing vulnerabilities and complex threats as a high priority in the coming year.

"In general, this follows the broader trend of IT losing centralized control of technology adoption, deployment, and use," writes Penn in a blog post. "It's not just consumer technology like iPods and the use of Facebook or Twitter; it also shows up in the uncontrolled proliferation of SharePoint sites by business groups or in the use of cloud computing services by application developers."