Can you cut information security in hard times and survive?

Although some analysts actually expect security spending to rise this year -- at least as a percentage of total IT spending -- some CIOs are giving serious thought to the once-unthinkable idea of trimming security budgets as businesses look to cut costs during this global recession.

"Almost certainly people are experiencing cuts," says Pete Lindstrom, an analyst with the research firm Spire Security. "If you think of security as a cost center within a cost center [IT], ... then security is a great place to start," he adds. "There are companies that are discounting their security in order to drive bottom line," says Charlie Meister, executive director of the University of Southern California's Institute for Critical Information Infrastructure Protection. "I've seen a pretty significant cutback over the past six months," says Rich Cummings, CTO at HBGary, a security company that has clients in the financial services industry.

The risk of cutting security is that a security breach can be disastrous. The Ponemon Institute pegs the average cost of a data breach at US$6.7 million.

But you may have no choice if the money is not there. Experts say companies that have done the hard work of really understanding their risk posture can trim spending without increasing risk. And companies that have taken security seriously can be equally smart about how they reduce their security costs, says USC's Meister. Sadly, he notes, the companies that are in this position are exceptional: "I don't think enough companies have done a great job of managing their risk profile. And it doesn't really occur [to them] until somebody loses a laptop."

So how do you cut security safely?

One method is to get your security intelligence from free projects, such as the Shadowserver project, rather than paying for the information, Cummings says.

Open-source tools preserve security, trim costs
The use of open-source software can also be a great place to cut security costs -- especially for small and medium-size businesses, says Spire's Lindstrom. They let businesses get equivalent security tools for less money. "If the product is commoditized enough and your people are skilled enough, it's not unreasonable at this stage of the game to consider open-source applications," he says.

For example, the ClamAV antivirus software and Snort intrusion-detection system are two widely used open-source antivirus products, as is the Open Source Security Information Management security event management software.

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