2009 RSA Attendees Split on the Effects of the Economic Downturn on Security Budgets

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – RSA CONFERENCE — Secure Passage today announced that its man-on-the-street survey at RSA Conference 2009 revealed that there is no consensus about spending for IT security. When asked if the downturn in the economy would have negative, positive or no implications for security budgets, the more than 100 respondents were nearly split in their perspectives. Thirty-two percent of respondents felt their budgets would increase and 32 percent believed budgets would decline; and 38 percent expected budgets to remain about the same over the next 12 months. The survey further reveals that new security threats and regulations would drive any new spend in security over the coming months.

When queried on the potential effects of a budget decline, 30 percent responded that their chief concern would be protecting against new security threats. The second biggest concern from the group of respondents was that they wouldn’t have the staff or resources to comply with audits and other regulations.

The number one category of security spending expected to be negatively impacted by a security budget decline was security training — a full 30 percent of respondents classified this as the first area to be sacrificed. Next on the list was network security — where 25 percent of respondents believed this would be an area they could trim their budgets. The most protected area of security was remote access — only three percent of the respondents felt they could trim spending in this category. The next most protected area was desktop access, where only 13 percent of respondents would expect to cut spending in this category.

The survey polled 109 conference attendees that are involved in the IT decision making process for organizations within a wide variety of industries, including health care, government, financial, insurance and telecom.

Join Secure Passage in a discussion of this survey and other security related topics on Twitter @SecurePassage, Facebook, and LinkedIn. For more information on Secure Passage, stop by booth 553 on the RSA Conference 2009 Expo floor.

Posted by Joe Franscella (Disclamer – I represent Secure Passage)