News

Survey: IT Security Spending on the Increase

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/22/09

Organizations will be dedicating a larger chunk of their IT budgets in 2009 to security measures, according to a survey by Web security vendor Finjan. Conducted in December 2008 among 200 IT and security professionals, the survey focused on determining the trends for allocating IT budgets in 2009 compared to 2008.

The results reveal that the total IT budgets for 2009 tend to be reduced compared to 2008. However, the IT security budget outlook was more optimistic since organizations intend to dedicate a larger part of their total IT budgets to IT security.

According to the survey, slightly more than a third of respondents expect no change in their 2009 IT budgets, while a third expect slightly smaller budgets. One third indicated that their IT security budgets for 2009 will increase, while 43% of all respondents expect their IT security budget for 2009 to remain the same. The survey also found that the upward trend in IT security budget allocation was more pronounced in the financial and governmental sectors than in others.

"While 2008 saw IT security departments facing new challenges in protecting valuable business data against an ever-increasing wave of cybercrime attacks, 2009 is adding a further economic challenge to the mix," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Finjan CTO.