February 21, 2005

According to a recent survey from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), for over 44 percent of B2B companies, Internet security is now a senior management issue.

These numbers are up from 39 percent in the last survey, indicating that security is an increasingly strategic issue for businesses.

The news coincided with the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, at which event Bill Gates and many other e-business leaders noted the unfortunate ubiquity of malware and the necessity for standalone, application-, and infrastructure-based solutions.

While electronic security has been a high-level business concern for years, it now seems to be positioned at the center of most e-business discussions.

It wasn't long ago that Gates and others were talking about islands of information that needed to be connected via Web services and other protocols; now, albeit in another context, some companies are no doubt fantasizing about the inherent safety of islands.

However, for most businesses of any size and/or complexity, this simply isn't an option, and the answer seems to be spending.

"Larger organizations are more likely to have increased their information security budgets in [the] last 12 months," noted BSA.

Companies clearly see a connection between spending and security, with BSA adding that "Nine out of ten companies surveyed report that financial resources have followed security elevation."

"Those companies that have recently upgraded by investing in the latest, most secure product are more likely to feel secure."

Spending is important, because it is how new products and expertise enter the enterprise, but security is also a basic governance issue. Ninety percent of all companies having institutionalized the post of information security officer or the equivalent.

Source: Line 56