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Businesses Spend 20% of IT Budgets on Security 141

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
Stony Stevenson writes "Security accounted for 20 percent of technology spending last year and it's expected to rise, according to a report released Tuesday. The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) surveyed 1,070 organisations and found that on average, they spent one-fifth of their technology budgets on security-related spending in 2006. That's up from the 15 percent of IT budgets spent on security in 2005, and the 12 percent spent in 2004."
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Businesses Spend 20% of IT Budgets on Security More

Businesses Spend 20% of IT Budgets on Security

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  • that's how we roll around here (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:25PM (#20934997) Homepage
    Security accounted for 20 percent of technology spending last year and it's expected to rise, according to a report released Tuesday ... That's up from the 15 percent of IT budgets spent on security in 2005, and the 12 percent spent in 2004.

    That makes sense. I mean, nerf weapons count as a security expense, right?

  • To bad most of it is Stupid Security. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:26PM (#20935003)
    I have waisted more time making workarounds these "security fixes" then ever just because they
    want to think they are safe but they never really consider the underlining problems with security.
    90% of the Market is using the SAME FREAKING OS! So they work on blocking legit Web Mail so
    Windows Viruses cant get in. Scanning all attachments to make sure there is no VBScript in Office
    For Windows Documents. Trying to block sites that could possible be considered to have Windows Spyware.

    Stop using freaking Windows all the time. Linux/Mac Workstations with VMWare to load Windows for those
    Windows only apps, Stop wasting time with making Windows Console application and focus on Web Based Apps
    Even if it is with .NET on a Windows Server, which you can run the Apps on any other browser, and OS.

    Of course gust going to a different OS isn't the only solution you need good firewalls and such. But...
    The core of the problem is Windows. Get Rid of Windows or reduce it to more bit parts then your companies
    security is so much better.

    Yes PHB MBA wont get it, they are afraid of doing anything differently then the rest. IT people will resist
    too because they don't know Linux or Macs as well as windows and are not willing to learn. But if you need
    to focus on security you need be different then the rest.

    You need to be flexible so If Macs or Linux becomes insecure (One to many features can cause that problem) then
    your custom apps need to be multi-platform or at least cross compilable to move from one system to an other.
    That is the correct direction for security. Not this Block you from getting you work done stuff.

    • Re:To bad most of it is Stupid Security. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CaptainPatent ( 1087643 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:40PM (#20935113) Journal
      Actually, a linux box in the hands of a clueless user can be just as dangerous [slashdot.org] if not more so than a windows box in the same hands.

      The real threat is ignorance here. That includes buying unnecessary security equipment, operating and running the system itself, and improperly using software firewall and routing.

      • Actually, a linux box in the hands of a clueless user can be just as dangerous if not more so than a windows box in the same hands.

        Depends on the distro...I've seen some live CDs that could cause trouble in the hands of a padawan...

        The real threat is ignorance here.

        I'm not so sure. I'm more likely likely to attribute illegal intrusions/Tphtphtph-ware to the weenies engaged in it. I'm not saying it's impossible to accidentally write fast-spreading worms, [wikipedia.org] but I believe it's a wee bit rarer than the intentional sort.

      • A clueless Admin hosting something maybe. But by default install of Desktop Linux those services that can be cracked if not correctly setup are not running. A defualt install of Desktop Linux is far more secure and safe then the default install of Windows.

        Lets compare apples to apples peoples!

        • Depends on your view of "security" (Score:4, Informative)

          by pedestrian crossing ( 802349 ) on Thursday October 11, 2007 @04:24AM (#20937179) Homepage Journal

          A clueless Admin hosting something maybe. But by default install of Desktop Linux those services that can be cracked if not correctly setup are not running.

          You are taking a very shallow view of security here. Sure, controlling what services are listening is a good first step. But your biggest threat isn't the outside hacker. It's the inside guy. It's being able to -prove- who did what, when.

          A defualt install of Desktop Linux is far more secure and safe then the default install of Windows.

          But once you move beyond that default install, and beyond shutting down unnecessary services, Linux isn't necessarily that "secure". The default install of Linux still has many problems that have to be addressed in order to have a secure system. Of course, so does Windows, but my point is that you cannot just load Linux, turn off services, and think you have anything like a secure system. In fact there are some advisable security requirements that are harder to implement on Linux than on Windows.

          I have secured both to NSA recommended standards, and yes, in general I prefer Linux, but don't fool yourself that any like a default Linux install is inherently secure, especially when it comes to auditing and attribution.

          • Thanks for presenting a well-balanced perspective. I too have run into this kind of stuff, auditing on OS X seems a hell of a lot harder especially to make en masse changes to policy. Have you found a way to manage it? Most machines in our place are Windows based so its easy, the Linux boxes don't see end-users as they are back-end service providers like my Oracle installs so auditing is very basic and easy there.

      • "The real threat is ignorance here."

        When you are talking about Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc, yes, it is.

        When talking about Windows, you have to clear all the way from browsers that execute arbitrary code from the web; files that execute automaticaly and the interface won't let you know beforehand; media that execute automaticaly, virus that spread trough text files, spreadsheets, images, video, etc; dialogs appearing all the time, trainning the user to agree to every one of them; And the list goes on...

        • My daddy could kick your daddy's butt. Can't we all just get along? I'm still trying to figure out how a IT budget article turned into Windows is more/less/as secure as Linux argument.

    • In Short... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hooya ( 518216 )
      ... Business spend 20% of their IT budgets - but only after spending 80% of the budget on MS software.

      I can't believe business (we currently do) have "hiring/bonus/travel" freeze but don't think twice about spending money on MS Software specifically. I guess better to pay MS employees than your own.

    • Re:To bad most of it is Stupid Security. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lobster Quadrille ( 965591 ) on Thursday October 11, 2007 @01:33AM (#20936501)
      As the head of my company's security department, the problem does not lie with Windows.

      I am no fan of Microsoft- after much fighting with my boss over it, I'm the only person in a mid-sized web design company running Linux on his desktop, but the core problem has nothing to do with Windows- at least not solely.

      The problem comes down to several things:

      Incompetence of users: This is the only place the the end OS really makes a difference, but all in all, I'd rather see the morons using Windows than Linux, just because they are already familiar with it. It's pretty tough to convince the uppers to retrain an entire company. That time and effort could in fact be better spent working on virus protection, network monitoring, etc., which any responsible security team still needs to do.

      Pre-existing infrastructure: Companies start small, usually with the IT department consisting of a guy who sort of knows how to build computers. As the company grows, the infrastructure is forced to expand with it. Generally, this invlolves hacks and patching things together until it reaches a breaking point and a real network engineer is brought in. The problem there is that he still needs to keep everything up and running. You can't exactly take down a network, lead/customer management database, external web applications, etc, rebuild them all from scratch, then move everybody over. If the company can't maintain a baseline of functionality, than a security/network overhaul won't do anybody any good.

      Cluelessness of management: Spending money on security rarely affect's the company's bottom end directly. The only way to get them to take security seriously is to show them what it will cost them to not do so. This isn't as hard as it sounds though- if you can convince upper management to participate in creating company security policy, you can start to show them that A) security involves not just confidentiality, but also availability and integrity of assets- two aspects that are far more critical, particularly in upper management's eyes. B) Protection of those assets is the responsibility of management. Hiring a security guy will do no good unless he has support from the top. When something goes wrong, they may have a patsy, but they suddenly won't have that database of customer information.

      It's nice to hear that companies are spending 20% of IT budgets on security, though I don't believe it. Regardless, there is definitely a positive trend. The companies are starting to realize that security isn't something you can pick up for the price of a firewall and a pentest- it's a cyclical process involving constant auditing, defining and refining processes in all aspects of the company (which is why management support is so critical), and most importantly, fixing problems WITHOUT interrupting the normal flow of business.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Compare to other Operating System,Windows mostly use email filtering, antivirus and firewalls. Then the user have the personal costs of running, maintaining and administering these products (such as updating antivirus). We have very little in the way of wireless networks, but if we did, they would be another cost (more administration then anything). So, it probably isn't 20% of the total expenses, but it would have to be close.
    • cross platform web based apps as a bottleneck for security I had never thought of. I am defenitely keeping it in mind for my next development project though!

  • I call bull (Score:3, Funny)

    by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:26PM (#20935007)
    Unless they count a UPS, RAID and tape drives as security, there is no way that security can eat up that much of the budget, except maybe if the surveyed all use Windoze...

    • Re:I call bull (Score:5, Informative)

      by teh moges ( 875080 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:37PM (#20935087) Homepage
      I'm not sure about you, but we (Windows mostly) use email filtering, web content filtering, anti virus and firewalls. Then you have the personal costs of running, maintaining and administering these products (such as releasing false positive emails, updating anti virus). Then I suppose you can count the fact we have a server for WSUS as an ongoing cost. We have very little in the way of wireless networks, but if we did, they would be another cost (more administration then anything).

      When I think about it, it probably isn't 20% of the total expenses, but it would have to be close.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )
        You must be having an IT person for every 20-50 users or so to support all that crap.

        E-mail filtering: Just some spamfiltering and clamav so we don't propagate virusses in case somebody decides to forward it
        Web content filtering: A big loss in $$$ since every single one of your employees WILL find a way around it which reduces security to even less since they'll be using less controllable techniques while having to look for it on Warez sites (which do have a lot of issues with random virusses etc.)
        Anti-viru

    • except maybe if the surveyed all use Windoze...
      Sadly, that's usually the case.

    • Unless they count a UPS, RAID and tape drives as security, there is no way that security can eat up that much of the budget, except maybe if the surveyed all use Windoze...


      And why would that surprise you? Like it or not (I certainly don't), windoze is the most common OS in the world - be it desktops, workstations, laptops, file / app / print / web servers ... Which of course leads to it having the largest number of security faults per cost.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unless they count a UPS, RAID and tape drives as security, there is no way that security can eat up that much of the budget, except maybe if the surveyed all use Windoze...

      I've worked in management for several Fortune 500 companies and you would have to include all SOX activities and all your redundancy (including hardware, datacenters and staff) in the "security" to even come close to these numbers.

      A very rough ballpark is that 1/3 is people, 1/3 is depreciation and 1/3 is hardware/software.
      Or sliced diffe

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > Unless they count a UPS, RAID and tape drives as security, there is no way that security can eat up
      > that much of the budget, except maybe if the surveyed all use Windoze...

      I'm sure a significant percentage of them use Windows, but what you're probably missing is that a lot of the security stuff that's typically sold to corporations (including, even, firewall solutions) is sold on a subscription basis, so that you have to pay every n (typically, twelve) months just to keep the same level of protecti
    • Unless they count a UPS, RAID and tape drives as security
       
      ...they definitely fit into the FIPS 199 concept of the CIA triad [wikipedia.org], which stands for:
      Confidentiality
      Integrity
      Availability

      UPS and RAID are part of Availability and tape backups (disaster recovery) are considered under both Availability and Integrity.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by arivanov ( 12034 )
      It can.

      AV , Client firewall, Integrity checkers and patch deployment, VPN, Firewall, Compliance, etc in a Windows shop ramp up to somewhere around there. Actually, quite often they are even more.

  • pebkac security patch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wizardforce ( 1005805 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:31PM (#20935047) Journal
    I wonder how much of that spending went to training their employees that "password", "letmein" and lastly "123" are *NOT* the best passwords.
    • Some people, honestly, seem to be untrain-able in that regard. I once had a coworker who not only used 'manager' as his password, but told damn near everyone in the company that was his password.

      You guessed it, even the people he managed new it...

    • Re:pebkac security patch (Score:5, Funny)

      by UncleTogie ( 1004853 ) * on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:05PM (#20935329) Homepage Journal

      I wonder how much of that spending went to training their employees that "password", "letmein" and lastly "123" are *NOT* the best passwords.

      Just happened today: The uber-friendly shopkeeper next door asked me to help him void a transaction. When the password prompt came up, he looked at me and simply said, "1-2-3-4-5."

      I couldn't resist. I looked back at him and said, "That's funny. I've got the same combination on my luggage..." [wikiquote.org]

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I couldn't resist. I looked back at him and said, "That's funny. I've got the same combination on my luggage..."
        It's not so funny when you use the same quote at LEAST twice a day, in regards to customer and employee-chosen passwords. During a recent audit, I checked a database of hashes against my rainbow tables, and I shit you not, one in 5 passwords was either 12345 or password.

        • It's not so funny when you use the same quote at LEAST twice a day...

          Oh, believe me, I know. I wasn't using the "amusing" connotation of the word "funny". What tore me up was he blurted out his password QUITE loudly... in front of customers. Thank God I trained myself to keep a straight face when I was younger...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > I wonder how much of that spending went to training their employees

      On average, not nearly enough. Employee training practically always gets shortchanged, and I'm not just talking about computer security, or even just about computer technology generally. It's true across the board in most industries.

      Worse, in a lot of industries, the money that _is_ budgetted for employee training gets mostly wasted on worthless nonsense, not spent on the training the employees could actually *use*.
  • Since we now have a way to track security expenditures, we should have some way to track money spent on anti-spam measures. Considering how well the anti-spam hardware and software sells, I'll venture its a nontrivial expense, as well.

    Even if you're just running some spiffy implementation of spam assasin, it still gets your time at some frequency to update the rules, amongst other things.
    • FTA:

      "The survey results also revealed that for each dollar spent on security, about 42 cents goes toward technology product purchases. In general, 17 cents goes toward security-related processes; 15 cents covers training; 12 cents for assessments; and 9 cents pays for certification. The balance goes to other items."

  • "Security" analysts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Da_Biz ( 267075 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:36PM (#20935085)
    At some of my consulting client sites, I've been underwhelmed by the quality of their "security analyst" staff. I've found that staff seemed to be more interested in putting their name on boilerplate "best practices" to pass off to others, rather than taking a hands-on, collaborative approach in working with sysadmins to really verify that their systems are secure.

    Don't even get me started on social engineering and how circumventable many secured entry systems are. It's a sad thought that someone posing as a lowly janitor could have free rein in most data centers.

    P.S. Security policy writers: why not start by giving your employees with access to high-security areas a way to disable their keycards 24 hours a day by phone (including some sort of challenge/response question for them to answer)? Simple, inexpensive and effective compared to a lost or stolen keycard falling into the wrong hands.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MichaelSmith ( 789609 )

      giving your employees with access to high-security areas a way to disable their keycards 24 hours a day by phone

      At my workplace the security people combined the ID card with the RFID access card so now if you lose the RFID card the person who finds it can go directly to our site and walk in.

      • That's why I ran my RFID card through a paper shredder and just call someone to open the door for me whenever I need to get in. If nobody is in the lab, I get security to let me in then. So much more secure!

    • Security policy writers: why not start by giving your employees with access to high-security areas a way to disable their keycards 24 hours a day by phone (including some sort of challenge/response question for them to answer)? Simple, inexpensive and effective compared to a lost or stolen keycard falling into the wrong hands.

      Hi there! I write security policies. Now I can't answer for the situation where you work, but there are two responses to this...

      • One: the art of good security is to spend just enough to make it not worth the attacker's time. A lost or stolen keycard is highly unlikely to be a targeted attack, and a random thief / person who picks a card up in the street (a) doesn't know which company and which address it applies to, and (b) probably doesn't care, as there's no benefit to them from getting into an empty

  • lol (Score:5, Funny)

    by spykemail ( 983593 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:48PM (#20935185) Homepage
    It's the same thing people always do when they screw something up and don't know how to fix it - throw money at it. I love it when IT companies get paid to implement "security" features (speed bumps) then "service" (disable) them. It would be like funding an invasion of a country then paying for the reconstruction of all the shit you just blew up~
    • It would be like funding an invasion of a country then paying for the reconstruction of all the shit you just blew up~

      You forgot the "oh wait ..."
  • Do these firms spend these security dollars properly or do they just do as recommended by whichever software/analyst group wants to sell them more software/and or information on holes? How much of the $$$ designated forward security is worth it? Anyone have insight into that aspect?
    • How much of any amount that anyone spends on anything is "worth it"?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pedestrian crossing ( 802349 )

      Do these firms spend these security dollars properly or do they just do as recommended by whichever software/analyst group wants to sell them more software/and or information on holes? How much of the $$$ designated forward security is worth it?

      Insightful question.

      Managers and the clueless (obviously not mutually exclusive sets!) are always looking for a "security product", the silver bullet.

      The reality is that security is a process, not a product. You have to incorporate it into your policies, plans an

  • and how much of that goes to the likes of Symantec?
  • From my point of view, the increase in security budgets is due to the increase in number of ways a system can be attacked. There's no doubt that security is very important for businesses. It's better to spend more on security rather than being attacked and hacked or anything like that, which can lead to more losses.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SCHecklerX ( 229973 )
      It's more because infrastructure 'security' has been commoditized. You now by a product to do this, another to do that, etc. What management doesn't get is that security is a process, and good security does not equal buying a bunch of commodity products. We can do without them, but most companies would rather pay consultants and vendors than listen to their own security analyst staff who have likely already given the managment 10 different ways to mitigate vulnerability to specific threats, but it only b

  • Hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:19PM (#20935419) Homepage
    hahahahahaha!

    Twenty percent...

    Oh, that's rich. Oh my. Oh. Hoo!

    Flying Spaghetti Monster, I love surveys and statistics. I've worked in internal security for the past couple years at a big accounting firm and as a security consultant for many years before this.

    Everyone knows they should be doing more to stay secure, but that fact is security doesn't do anything obviously positive for the bottom line. It's like flossing: most people floss when they have some chicken stuck between their molars but they don't do it every night. (Little tip for everyone trying to get money for security: give up on ROI; sell it like you're selling an insurance policy.)

    When CIOs or CISOs get these surveys they fluff the numbers because they know they are supposed to be secure even if they have a hard time justifying security spending to the Board. "Oh yeah, we spent $X on Security. That's about 15-25% of our IT budget." What they don't say is that number includes the payroll (including salary, benefits, and payroll taxes) of all IT staff that have anything to do with security, audit, or regulatory compliance.

    Contrast that with asking them what they spent on email they'd probably tell you about their Exchange license fees and maybe some server hardware. They'll leave out staffing costs, retention software and SAN, etc.

    My guess is that the average IT budget is spending maybe -- MAYBE -- 10% on security, audit, and compliance related expenses.

    I will admit here that I didn't RTFA. If the survey population was mostly US-based publicly traded companies that fall under SOX regulations the 20% number is a tiny bit more believable because CFOs and CEOs don't want to go to jail based on a fuckup by a minimum wage (in their frame of reference) IT staffer.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
      Security is a subset of IT, and IT as a whole is not a profit-center ... it's an operating expense. Now, what is it that most execs try to do with operating expenses?

  • Security is tricky... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:45PM (#20935551) Journal
    The trickiest thing about security is that there's no reliable way to tell for sure whether it's worked or not. Any security system can be defeated by a properly designed attack, although for a given system this may never happen if there's no one who has both the resources and desire to defeat it.

    But the trick is, a sufficiently well-planned attack can defeat security without anyone knowing it happened. So you can't really rely on a count like the number of detected intrusions (whether they were thwarted or not). The result of this fact is that there's a huge amount of crosstalk about "best practices" and what's Good Security and what's not. You could have a system that tracks N intrusions per year, and thwarts them all, but if there were 2N intrusions that were not detected (let alone thwarted)... you go around claiming you've got great security, but do you really?

    This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to have security, obviously, but it does mean that security is a giant, tricky grey area.
    • Uh security is easy. Don't run programs from writable media. If you do, restore the media once a day (and also keep up with patches / other best practices). Anything else is snake oil.

      Always assume someone has a zero day rootkit for every server you run. You live in fantasy land if you think there aren't hackers that could pwn your system instantly in this world.

      Done.

      Sean
      • That solves the problem of people rooting your box. Now address these ones:

        Stupid users
        Information Disclosure
        Fires, floods and nuclear apocalyps
        keeping the source tree for your new video game from going public
        That hard copy of the company directory that just got thrown in the dumpster out back
        the list goes on and on...

        There's a lot more to security than keeping the script kiddies off your web server.
        • just ignore security. and ignore stupid users. :) make it all go away pretty please ? nah well there is no way to keep everything 100% up all the time and if you are at the five nines in uptime it should be fine. people tend to panic and go OMG THE INTERNET IS GONE FOR 5 MINUTES!!!.. cry more. if you have documents that are secret and aren't supposed to leak out, put it on a separate network. for other stuff there is backup, redundant servers. your system is hackable, it's a fact, will anyone do it ?
    • Host based security is tricky because if the host is compromised, a good attacker will cover their tracks. It's harder, maybe even impossible, to cover your tracks when you are dealing with something transparent on the network, like a bump in the wire.

      Detecting an attack is easier to do then thwarting an attack, and obviously so. What is sad is that many IT types would rather not even know about attacks because then they are liable. Ignorance, even in IT, is bliss.

      I once tested a network monitor that I

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Time Ed ( 970465 )
      I'm sorry, but this is wrong. And a trap a lot of IT managers fall in to. Don't negate pragmatism with cynicism. Thinking that no barriers will hinder an attack then sitting on your hands because of it keeps the dollars out of your budget.

      Security isn't "tricky" or a "grey area". Security is awareness. Understanding how and where the machines on your network communicate is usually all that's required. If you take the time to study the traffic flows every day, monitor your choke points, and respect the compu

  • 20% !? (Score:2)

    by Stormie ( 708 )
    I probably shouldn't admin this for fear of making my workplace look like an attractive target, but DAMN, there is no way that anything even remotely close to 20% of our IT budget is spent on security. I'd be surprised if it was 2%.
  • At first glance 20% sounds really high, but once you think about what could be mixed in with security, I'd believe 20%. No, it shouldn't be that high, but thanks to the great Internet thing, that's what we get.
  • ...and its secure from the start.

    Linux Admin: "BSD? lolwut? thats like that OS from the fifties right?"
    OpenBSD Admin: *sigh*
  • In my place, the security and the windows department always have misunderstanding.It is not that security department does not want to beef up the security, it is because other department that want special "request".
  • ...plugging holes in Windows

  • Evidently coffee must be = 21% of IT budgets (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MadMidnightBomber ( 894759 ) on Thursday October 11, 2007 @03:51AM (#20937049)
    "If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, then you will be hacked," [Richard] Clarke said during his keynote address. "What's more, you deserve to be hacked."
  • Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS come with a reasonable Net Filter (iptables) configuration by default that allows the necessary operations. It can be easily configured to allow extra ports, trusted interfaces, etc. It often gets turned off because it's supposedly too hard.

    Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS also come with SE Linux enabled by default, it gets turned off more often than Net Filter.

    I find it difficult to believe that any significant portion of IT budget goes to security when I see so many

  • Honesty? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Speed Pour ( 1051122 ) on Thursday October 11, 2007 @06:41AM (#20937799)
    Crazy question...since nobody else has bothered to ask it...is it possible that the average company feels they will appear more "privacy responsible" by claiming to spend a huge portion on security?

    Somehow I'm picturing companies answering surveys with 20%, stock investors are probably hearing 2%-5%, and the people who actually make decisions are really putting in about 7%-12%.

  • Y2K Redux (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bstarrfield ( 761726 ) on Thursday October 11, 2007 @08:13AM (#20938265)

    Seems to me that we're seeing another Y2k scenario - there is a real issue, and let's all overreact. Y2K was a profitable business for many consulting firms, contractors, and software vendors. The Y2K situation was something that needed to be addressed but by scaring C-level executives there's great profit to be made!

    Read one of the security journals, look at the marketing hype coming out of Symantec, McAfee, and any number of security consulting firms - the primary message is fear. Fear of some unquantifiable buggiman come to get your precious data. Precious little data on how many monsters are out to get your data, but you best be afraid. And I agree - there is reason to be concerned, but no reason to be hysterical and dedicate one fifth of your IT budget to the nebulous Security functions.

    How many of these security consultants are brand new? How many are receiving certifications from the very same groups that are attempting to promote the opinion that there's a security crisis? Can you fix security problems yourself, within your own firm? Damn likely. Many IT groups underestimate their abilities (or their senior managers do), and outsource a job that could, perhaps, be done better in house.

    I realize that we can't ignore the security issue, just as we couldn't ignore Y2K. But hysterically throwing money onto the problem won't solve the problem either. Don't waste your money if you can avoid it. Don't just fall for the drama of the moment if at all possible

  • There is not impossible if the budget will increase year by year as we know that security is very important in IT nowadays. A lot of testing has to perform to produce the secure system.All of these testing required a huge amount of budget.
  • it good thing, they use 1 over 5 in security budgect...security is most important part in today life...without it how can how can we protect our secretor information from others...include militarry...without it may be..cave man know how many tank we have and operate...it worth to pay for it... --- (=.=')0....got red for english
  • Has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis for the amount of money spent on IT security? Seems like the only people qualified to estimate the probabilities - ie security consultants - have a vested interest in over-exaggerating security dangers.

    I found this book review which seems to suggest that nobody knows:

    The major flaw with MCR arrives in ch 4, on p 68: "The variables affecting potential cost savings include (1) the potential losses associated with information security breaches, (2) the probability tha

  • ...security spending will take up 155% of IT's budget in the year 2015.

    Either someone has to increase IT's budget before the 100% mark is reached in 2013, or the DBAs should be sent out to pillage from Accounts Receivable.
  • 20%? Seems high, but when you consider the three biggest parts of their "security" budget," antivirus software, firewalls, and proxy servers" it falls into place--especially since most survey-answerers would lump antivirus measures in with antispam.

    Real security--IDS, systems and network monitoring, incident response, still gets short shrift--mostly a bit of lip service whenever Sarbanes-Oxley gets tossed around but no real support. It's hard to get a budget though, when security geeks aren't geared up for
  • Too bad most companies vastly underspend on IT in general... so that "20% of all IT spending" is probably much smaller than it sounds.

  • Real security work is integrated. How do you measure, "decided to write it to avoid the possibility of buffer overflows" or "designed it to not execute foreign code when an ignorant user merely 'clicks' on something" in your budget?

    They spill the bullshitbeans here:

    According to CompTIA, antivirus software, firewalls, and proxy servers hold the top slots for security enforcement technologies

    They're just talking about how much was spent buying faux-security products. "Security enforcement technologies," s

  • A report this month by Computer Security Institute [cmpnet.com] says that fewer than 9% of its respondents said they spend more than 10% of their IT budget on security. The bulk of respondents (page 7) said that the number is closer to 2-5%.

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