Security software and services budgets 'to rise around 4% in 2010'

2009-09-09

Security software and services budgets are set to increase by around four per cent in 2010, Gartner has projected, which could suggest that firms are more concerned about data breach incidents and malicious screen scraping activity.

Indeed, outgoings on security software and services will outpace other IT spending areas next year, according to a Gartner survey of over 1,000 IT professionals with responsibilities for budgets from across the world.

The study found that security service spending will also outpace expenditure in other services areas, as the organisation expects budgets will grow 2.74 per cent in 2010.

This is being partly driven by a shift towards managed security services and cloud-based e-mail/web security solutions.

Gartner also attributed the rise to a move towards third-party compliance-related consulting and vulnerability audits and scans.

"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. Security decision makers should work to allocate limited budgets based on enterprise-specific security needs and risk assessments," commented Adam Hils, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Principal research analyst at Gartner Ruggero Contu, meanwhile, asserted that companies should look to gain "a realistic view of current spending" when planning their security budgets for next year. He said that firms should also note that they could "capture all security-related spending because of organisationally-diffused security budgets".

New threats or vulnerabilities could mean that firms will need to spend more than their budgets allow for, Mr Contu commented. Companies should therefore think about setting aside up to 15 per cent of the IT security budget to deal with any potential unseen problems, he added.

Last month, Gartner revealed that Asia Pacific security market grew at a rate of 28.3 per cent last year, asserting that the security sector did not suffer a notable impact from the economic downturn.

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