The Hindu Business Line : Spending for IT security relatively low: Study

Bangalore, May 8 IT security spend in India is relatively low compared with other fast-growing economies, which could erode the country’s value proposition in the global IT services market.

A recent study of CIOs revealed that though 90 per cent agreed that IT security is a vital component, a significant number of them did not have any fixed budget for it, Frost & Sullivan said in a statement.

“The procurement of IT security products in these companies was purely demand based and adherence to standards is abysmally low,” said Mr Girish Trivedi, Deputy Director (ICT Practice), Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East. However, sectors such as banking and financial services, telecom, IT and ITeS are the highest spending verticals in terms of IT security as percentage of total IT budgets, Mr Trivedi added.

Internal breaches

On an average, 83 per cent of threats faced by the companies are because of internal security breach. Internal security breaches by employees constituted 43 per cent, former employees 28 per cent and partner or supplier 12 per cent, Frost & Sullivan said. Around 42 per cent of companies suffered financial losses, while 35 per cent faced intellectual property losses, it added.

“Internal incidents of data loss are on the rise and enterprises need to evaluate the impact such incidents will have,” said Mr Ajay Verma, Director (Channels & Alliances), Symantec India.

Mr Verma said infringement or loss of IP can erode the value proposition of a market leader. Data loss prevention has to be the bedrock of good corporate governance, he added.

Frost & Sullivan said the enterprise network security market in India was estimated to be $129.32 million and it grew at 19.21 per cent in 2008. It will further grow at a CAGR of 10.56 per cent in India.

Network security includes Firewall/IP Sec VPN, SSL VPN and IDS/IPS technology.

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Spending for IT security relatively low: Study