In addition, information security initiatives were identified by IT professionals as one of the top five IT priorities for 2012.
ESG also found that 35% of organizations plan to hire additional security staff; 23% of organizations believe that there is a “problematic shortage” of security skills in their organization.
Just over half of organizations intend to make additional investments in network security technologies, such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and gateway devices, because they need additional scale, integration, and security services at the network level. This is good news for Cisco, Check Point, Juniper, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks, and Sourcefire, noted ESG principal analyst Jon Oltsik in a blog. Other high priorities identified were mobile security, endpoint security, and security information and event management.
With the rise of sophisticated cyberattacks, organizations have no choice but to adopt advanced malware protection. This will benefit startups like CounterTack, Damballa, and FireEye, as well as established leaders like RSA, Sourcefire, and Trend Micro, Oltsik wrote.
Given the threat landscape, shortage of skilled security professionals, and increasingly complex IT environment, many organizations will decide to outsource security tasks to professional services and security as a service (SaaS) providers. This is likely to benefit HP, IBM, Unisys, and Symantec, Oltsik noted.