Technologies that help protect information assets, such as data loss prevention tools and application encryption software will top the list of some of the relatively new data security systems that are expected to win a slice of the budget in 2009.
The end of year status report published by Forrester, which was based on polls of almost 1,000 IT managers in North America and Europe, reported that 20% of organisations would consider spending more in these areas. Managed security services are also expected to win favour, especially among SMBs.
Forrester’s findings are in keeping with other industry research, which has found that IT spending will be closely aligned with initiatives that support or protect the business.
The top three IT spending priorities for 2009 will focus on improving business processes, decreasing costs and bolstering security controls in an effort to reduce risk.
The Forrester report, The State of SMB Security:2008-2009 projects that deployment of identity management and schemes that better automate access controls are also likely to win budget approval – even in the tough economy.
One likely reason for this was revealed in a November survey of Fortune 1,000, companies by Texas-based SailPoint Technologies. It found that over 40% of IT executives could not “immediately remove all access privileges for terminated employees” should the company have a massive layoff.
