Rising security threats driving IT budgets up

Security is always at the forefront of any CIO’s mind, and two new studies this week have demonstrated why once again. Deloite’s 2010 Financial Services Global Security Study reveals that 70% of UK financial services firms have increased their security budgets in the last 12 months. The top strategies receiving funds are identity and access management and data loss prevention, illustrating which security threats are looming large in CIO’s concerns.

Mike Maddison, head of Deloitte’s security practice, said: “Financial institutions are facing a battle on two fronts in their efforts to protect consumers' financial assets and data.

“The threat landscape has evolved; on one side they are tackling the growing sophistication of targeted attacks by criminal gangs and on the other recognising the increasingly expensive secure perimeter is no protection from internal threats.”

Quite so. In particular, it is email that is causing a great deal of headaches to IT professionals. A Prooftpoint poll taken at the Infosecurity Europe show in London revealed that a whopping 93% of IT professionals are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ concerned about possible leaks of sensitive information via email. This shows in the plans to encrypt email data; 49% of respondents have already deployed some sort of email encryption system, and 21% have a similar system on the cards.

Ken Yearwood, director NEMEA at Proofpoint, said: “These findings support what Proofpoint has seen in its own dealings with e-mail security customers and prospects across Europe.

“Enterprises have a pressing need to adhere to regulations that require special handling of sensitive information in e-mails, and require automatic methods for ensuring compliance.”

Email aside, at least IT professionals have their devices covered. 94% of respondents who had a company laptop said that it was password protected, and 58% said that their laptop used full disk encryption.

Yearwood was enthusiastic on that one. “It is gratifying to see that passwords are now commonplace,” he said, “and that businesses are embracing security mechanisms such as full disk encryption to ensure that the company is not at risk in the event that a laptop is lost or stolen."