Worldwide information security spending expected to increase in 2008 Commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm, the study features surveys of more than 2,000 remote workers and IT professionals from various industries in 10 countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, India, Australia, and Brazil. Sixty-two percent of IT respondents reported that they will increase security-related spending in 2008, and of those, more than half (37 percent) said their increased security investments will rise by more than 10 percent as compared to their previous years’ budgets. The highest percentage of IT decision makers who plan to boost spending are from nations that are relative newcomers to widespread Internet and IP-based corporate networking. Of the 10 countries in the study, China, India, and Brazil feature the highest number of IT decision makers who are not only planning to increase spending in general, but the largest percentage who will increase security investments by more than 10 percent year-over-year. According to John N. Stewart, Cisco’s chief security officer, large populations of network-dependent employees in China, India, and Brazil were not overwhelmed by Code Red, NIMDA, and the other notorious malware attacks as pervasively as in Internet-dependent, consumer-based economies like the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. However, today they represent three of the world’s fastest growing economies, and their dependence on the Internet and corporate networks is rising rapidly. The study indicates that risky behavior from remote workers in these three countries, such as opening suspicious emails, hijacking wireless networks from neighbors, or sharing corporate devices with non-employees, is much more extensive than in nations that feature a longer history of corporate Internet use. As a result, this behavioral trend could contribute to the jump in IT security spending. Although China, India, and Brazil feature the highest projected rates of spending, the trend is not relegated to emerging economies. More than half of the IT respondents in eight of the 10 countries are planning to increase security spending this year. The breakdown by country is as follows: * India: 83 percent of respondents expect to increase their information security spending (60 percent to increase spending more than 10 percent) * China: 83 percent (58 percent) * Brazil: 68 percent (56 percent) * Germany: 61 percent (31 percent) * Italy: 60 percent (35 percent) * UK: 58 percent (29 percent) * Australia: 55 percent (30 percent) * US: 53 percent (27 percent) * France: 49 percent (22 percent) * Japan: 24 percent (15 percent).
•Date: 11th March 2008• Region: US/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC markets
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