Economic gloom won’t stop security spending

Even in the poor economic environment, businesses will spend more on security next year, according to Gartner.

The analysts claimed that security software budgets would increase by four per cent, outpacing spending on other types of enterprise software, while security services spending would grow by three per cent.

Spending would be driven by software focusing on email security, URL filtering, and security information and event management (SIEM). Spending would also increase on services like cloud-based email and web security solutions, as well as third-party compliance testing.

Ruggero Contu, principle research analyst for Gartner, warned that businesses needed to realise that new threats could need them to spend more money than they originally allocated.

"[Businesses] should consider setting aside up to 15 per cent of the IT security budget to address the potential risks and impact of such unforeseen issues," he said in a statement.

Gartner surveyed more than worldwide 1,000 IT professionals who had responsibility for budgets, predicting what they were likely to spend in 2010.