Network Security News

SMBs giving security bigger slice of budget pie

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

A new report from a research firm has found large corporations and SMBs will be using a bigger percentage of their IT budgets toward security this year.

Forrester Research found corporations that spent 11.7 percent of their company's IT budget are poised to spend more in 2009, despite the weakening economy, DarkReading.com reports. The Forrester report also said security will account for a higher percentage of budget allocations for new initiatives.

"Security is getting a larger slice of the IT budget pie," wrote Forrester analyst Jonathan Penn in the enterprise study, according to the website.

This holds true for SMBs as well, which spent 9.4 percent less on security last year when compared to 2007, according to the report. In 2009, many SMBs have plans to bring IT security budgets back up to 10.1 percent.

Some of the reasons for increased spending on security included protecting a company's data, disaster recovery and threat management.

This may be a good move for SMBs as they are a frequent target of cybercriminals and hackers due to their lax security systems. Some forward-thinking SMBs have also employed the use of email archiving, which can assist in email security and disaster recovery.