Investment Focus Shifting From Point Solns To Holistic Approach: IDC

Dimension Data, an IT solutions and services provider, has announced the results of a new IT security survey, conducted by market research firm IDC, which revealed that most organisations are placing investment in Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technology at the top of their priority list. While 57 percent of the companies polled said they plan to invest in DLP technology, three times the number of respondents said they believe data leakage is more likely to occur through accidental employee error (45 percent) than by external hackers with malicious intent (15 percent).

A majority of respondents (85 percent) said they thought data loss through external hacking was ‘very unlikely’, and 55 percent perceived intentional external data loss as having only ‘moderate impact’ or ’no impact at all’ on their business. Additionally, more than 60 percent said they believe they are unlikely to be affected by virus attacks.

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“The challenge when protecting an organisation from internal data loss is that traditional defenses are designed to face outward, at the perimeter of a network, whereas the inside of the network remains relatively free of security controls. Compounding the problem, security awareness training initiatives for employees often go unfunded because organisations find it difficult to demonstrate a return on investment for such training,” said Neil Campbell, global general manager, Security Solutions, Dimension Data. “To tackle these challenges, companies are moving toward DLP as it involves a holistic approach to the protection of information, rather than simply the protection of networks and systems. It creates automated, technical barriers to both human error and malicious intent.”

The IDC research, commissioned by Dimension Data, surveyed IT security decision makers at more than 400 organisations, with at least 500 employees each, across 18 countries in the Americas, Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. Other key survey results include:

* Compliance variations. The research revealed that large organisations with more than 1,000 employees tended to be more compliant than smaller companies. In addition, companies in the Americas and in the public sector were more concerned about IT security regulations than those in other regions and industries.

* IT security spending. The survey found that from 2008 to 2009, 19 percent of the companies surveyed increased their overall IT spending while 41 percent decreased it, mainly due to the economic downturn. However, for nearly 60 percent of the organisations, the average spend on IT security within the overall IT budget remained at 10 percent or more.

* Shift to holistic approach. The surveyed companies appear to be shifting their investment focus away from point solutions to a more holistic approach, with 59 percent planning to invest in IT security audits and 52 percent in consulting services. This indicates a growing realisation that reacting to security incidents, and ad-hoc acquisition of point technologies without regard to how they dovetail with others, is more costly and less effective than planning an integrated strategy.