Michael Mimoso submits, Formerly with the National Security Agency and Secret Service, Gartner Inc. vice president John Pescatore has the perspective and experience to comment on just about everything related to IT security. In this interview, conducted during the Gartner IT Security Summit, Pescatore lends his two cents on security spending, trends, cyberterrorism, government's role in security and what enterprises need to do safely stay afloat.. . .
Michael Mimoso submits, Formerly with the National Security Agency and Secret Service, Gartner Inc. vice president John Pescatore has the perspective and experience to comment on just about everything related to IT security. In this interview, conducted during the Gartner IT Security Summit, Pescatore lends his two cents on security spending, trends, cyberterrorism, government's role in security and what enterprises need to do safely stay afloat.

Spending on security in the enterprise is either on the rise or flat, according to most accounts. What are companies spending money on?

Pescatore: If you look at the total spending on security, it's definitely going up strongly. We look at it as a percent of the IT budget. So, in 2001, the industry average was 3.3% of the IT budget toward security. In 2002, it went up to 4.3%. We're projecting for this year, 5.4%. Some segments, such as government, are going to grow faster. Government is going to grow faster than anybody because of the [Department of Homeland Security]. Places like universities are also bumping their budgets up because they're getting killed by places like the recording industry for piracy. The interesting thing for 2003, it's the first year ever that, when the CIO looks at the pie chart of where his money went, security will have its own label on the chart. It won't be lumped in with 'other.'

The link for this article located at searchSecurity is no longer available.