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Research: 41 percent increasing IT security budget in 2014

Security concerns, budgets, trends and future plans were the focus of a recent Tech Pro Research survey, in which 41 percent of respondents said they will spend more on IT security in 2014 compared to 2013.
Written by Teena Maddox, Contributor

Security is always a concern for IT professionals, and media news reports of breaches and leaks, combined with internal threats, have further increased worries.

A recent Tech Pro Research survey focused on IT security. The survey attracted 244 respondents from around the globe and from organizations of all sizes. The resulting report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans, focuses on the key findings from the survey.

Budgets were a hot subject. Overall, 41 percent of survey respondents said they will increase their IT security budget next year. This is a 16 percent increase compared to the number of budgets that rose in 2013. In addition, only 11 percent of all respondents said they plan to decrease their security budget next year.

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About two-thirds of the respondents said they are now more concerned with security, following media reports of breaches and leaks. However, only large organizations with more than 1,000 employees are planning to improve IT security controls. Smaller companies are lagging behind in the implementation of IT security controls.

Security projects were also discussed, with the top project for 2014 remaining the same as 2013: the development of better risk management processes.

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One of the top security concerns for businesses in 2014 will be Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Lack of employee awareness regarding social engineering attacks was the number-one concern in 2013, but this moved to joint second place for 2014, with BYOD taking the top slot. BYOD has been such an ongoing topic that Tech Pro Research has created a ready-made BYOD policy that companies can download to use as their own policy.

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 The report also addresses the following IT security topics:

  • Employee awareness challenges
  • Improved risk management leads
  • Managing internal threats
  • Moving to risk management
  • BYOD challenges

Download the full Tech Pro Research report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans. The report is free to all Tech Pro Research subscribers.

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