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By Cara Garretson
Corporate spending on security software and services is expected to outpace investment in all other infrastructure software next year, despite the likelihood that IT budgets will not increase, according to research firm Gartner.
In a newly issued report, Gartner predicts that companies' security software budgets will increase by 4 percent in 2010, and spending on security services will climb by 3 percent. Gartner surveyed more than 1,000 IT professionals with worldwide budgetary responsibilities for the study.
"In the current, highly uncertain economic environment, with overall IT budgets shrinking, even the modest spending increases indicated by the survey show that security spending accounts for a higher percentage of the IT budget," said Adam Hils, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "Security decision-makers should work to allocate limited budgets based on enterprise-specific security needs and risk assessments."
The anticipated uptick in security spending comes as good news to vendors like Symantec, which recently reported first-quarter results that didn't meet expectations because its corporate customers were signing shorter contracts or maintenance deals.
The forecast also demonstrates the realization by CIOs that security technology remains essential, even in times of modest budgets and reduced staff. But they also speak to the complexity of corporate security threats, as new and different malware and attacks are being developed every day, says Gartner. The firm recommends that companies set aside a cash cushion of up to 15 percent of their existing IT security budgets to leverage should new security threats require additional technology.
Gartner predicts that security information and event management (SIEM), e-mail security, URL filtering, and user provisioning will be software technologies that rank high on IT departments' buying lists next year. As for security services, Gartner sees corporations moving toward managed security services, cloud-based e-mail and Web security offerings, and third-party testing, auditing, and consulting regarding compliance.
TheInfoPro agrees that security is a growing concern among IT professionals and is getting more budget dollars. In a July report, the research firm said that application security in particular is becoming a top priority, as 82 percent of 246 security professionals said that the vulnerability of applications available outside of the corporate firewall are their number-one concern. Respondents' second-biggest concern was unauthorized use of applications, while vulnerabilities in third-party applications ranked third.
Respondents in the TheInfoPro survey said that identity management is the key area where security spending will increase in 2010, with application firewall and network access control ranking second and third, respectively. Preventing data leaks also ranked high on spending lists.
"Like everywhere in IT spending, belts tighten quickly among security organizations. With strong spending in 2008 dramatically decreasing in 2009, [the] outlook for 2010 is only marginally positive," said Bill Trussell, managing director of security research at TheInfoPro. "However, in emerging trends, virtualization does not appear to be a driver for security spending, and the adoption of external cloud computing services might be delayed due to increased concern overall on implementing such a strategy."
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