Computer Security Grabs Attention, But Not Always $$$

Written by Bradley Siddell

More than 90 percent of government IT executives say that data security is their highest priority for 2007, yet security allocations account for just 10 percent of their IT budgets, on average, according to a December 2006 survey from Accenture/IDC. One reason for the discrepancy is that IT security can be difficult to justify to executive leaders, and quantifying the effect of security investments is not always easy. There are ways government IT executives can try to convince executive leaders of the value of security investments, according to security and IT consultants. These include educating executives about the full consequences of a data breach or demonstrating that a security investment produces an unexpected benefit, such as allowing two departments to safely share information. Providing incident response training to CEOs, legal counsel, HR directors, and other important executives serves as a "high-impact but inexpensive way to communicate what can happen" when a security breach occurs, says Cybertrust security consultant Bryan Sartin.

Source:Federal Computer Week