CA Technologies has released a study looking at the, "8 Steps to Modernise Security for the Application Economy."

The study shows how mobility, API’s and an eye towards growing the business has brought a balanced view of control and enablement to security.

Amit Chatterjee, executive vice president, CA Technologies, said: "Today we need to live in a security-first world — light-years from the days when security was an afterthought and bolted on after a service or application was deployed."

"With the application economy going full-throttle in the hyper-connected world of people, devices and expanding ambient data, businesses realize that security goes beyond protection. The same tools that govern who and what can access our data, also can deliver a frictionless and positive customer experience and contribute to business growth in a variety of ways."

The key findings of the study show that:

Mobility matters:

The need to improve the mobile customer experience was cited as a top security priority by 42%, however, this was second to protecting against data breaches (56%) as a top security priority. Additionally, 49% of respondents said that mobility has a big or significant impact on security practices and policies with regards to customers. CA Technologies expects this number to expand as the increase of mobility, BYOD and IoT push towards an "unwired enterprise" where perpetual connectivity adds complexity and higher risks.

The desire to innovate quickly:

API assembled apps are expected to lead the way in building success in the application economy, with the majority of respondents (79%) opening their data as API’s in order to accelerate mobile and web application delivery.

New attitudes adopted:

Business enablement is an important benefit of security according to 48% of respondents, with 78% having seen or expect to see increased revenue from new services which have been enabled by improved security.

Increase in security investment:

Increased investment in security has been created by new views towards security and the protection and enablement it offers. Respondents believe that 25% of all IT spending will be devoted to security in the next three years, up from the current figure of 18%.

The study asked 1,425 senior IT and line-of-business executives in enterprise organisations with revenues more than $500 million or more in financial services, healthcare, retail, telecommunications and media/entertainment industries. The study was conducted in 13 countries including the U.S, U.K, China, India, Japan and Germany,