June 28, 2006

According to research performed in March by IDC, overworked employees in many corporate and government I.T. departments have difficulty in keeping up with cybersecurity. The study reveals that lack of Internet security expertise, combined with a steady increase in viruses of all kinds, worms and other malicious software code accounts for a 49.1 percent increase in global spending for security software.

Overall, support-services spending totaled $1.4 billion last year and is widely expected to reach over $2.1 billion in four years from now.

In North America alone, health care will lead spending for all security software, IDC says, followed by process manufacturing and discrete manufacturing. IDC estimates spending in those three industries will grow at compound annual rates of 17 percent, 15.5 percent and 15.3 percent respectively.

By 2009, IDC estimates it will grow faster than the overall market, which is expected to grow 13.2 percent to $8.7 billion.

"Internet security is a lot like chasing your tail," says senior research analyst Matt Healey. "As soon as you get a nice and secure network, another set of malware comes along."

IT departments at companies and the government are spending money to get automated updates to antivirus and other software that keeps pc's, workstations, servers, data centers and networks secure. They are also spending for consulting services to find security holes in their infrastructure, although that spending was not included in Healey's report.

IDC surveyed eight security vendors: Cisco Systems, Check Point Software Technologies, Internet Security Systems, McAfee, RSA, Secure Computing, Symantec and Trend Micro. They also surveyed their customers.

Even though security vendors prefer automatic updates, Healey says, they should still offer support over the telephone or through on-site visits.

"Customers may still have to call somebody, or have somebody come out to quarantine their network," he says. "Security requires constant vigilance and constant attention."

Source: Baseline

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