Gartner: Security budgets are up, so is accountability

When Gartner Inc. vice president John Pescatore looks to 2004, he sees a couple of things that security administrators need to worry about, and they’re not just in the realm of malicious code. Next year, the security budget for the average enterprise will, for the first time, constitute more than 5% of its overall IT budget, Pescatore said Monday during a session at Gartner ITxpo. So, for many, 2004 will be the first year that security spending shows up on the CIO’s pie chart. What that means, Pescatore said, is that CSOs had better be ready to quantify what they’re doing, in terms as clear as those used by network administrators, who can describe their performance in terms of downtime statistics, or by help desk officials, who can talk about how quickly they resolve system problems. “I really think the key challenge that we’re going to face over the next couple of years is demonstrating that we’re delivering some sort of [specific] security service level and defending how much money is being spent to achieve that service level,” said Pescatore, who is vice president for Internet security at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. Full Story