Economy Forces Many to Slash Security Staff, Survey Says

A new survey has found that the majority of security budgets are being hard-hit by the economic downturn, as many respondents are either implementing hiring freezes or slashing security staff.

In an article on the IT World website, Joan Goodchild says the study by CSO magazine polled security decision-makers in more than 100 companies about their spending plans for 2009.

The survey found that 64 percent said that the economy was having a negative impact on security spending, and another 19 percent said the economy currently had no impact. Just 6 percent said the crisis was having a positive impact on their organization’s security budget.

“Security budgets will decrease for 35 percent of respondents and remain the same for 42 percent,” Goodchild added. “Just 23 percent thought spending would increase in the coming year. Those numbers are a switch from last year's CSO poll when more respondents expected to increase security spending. In 2008, 38 percent of respondents planned to increase their security budget and just 24 percent expected to see a decrease in spending.”

The survey asked security decision-makers if they planned to increase or decrease spending in the following areas: Business Continuity/disaster recovery, data loss prevention, identity management, compliance and regulations, outsourced security systems, physical security, policy and risk management and staff.

“In all but one category, more than half of respondents expected spending to remain at similar levels,” Goodchild added. “However, when it comes to spending on staff, 41 percent expect to see a decrease in spending. Close to 60 percent have either implemented, or plan to implement, a hiring freeze.”

To read the full article, click here: http://www.itworld.com/security/63480/survey-economy-forces-many-slash-freeze-security-staff