IT security still biggest concern for directors

IT security will remain the biggest concern for IT directors in the next 18 months, according to one of the UK’s most important annual surveys.

Computing’s exclusive ImageTrak 2005 study questioned more than 5,000 senior IT and finance managers about their key technology issues and suppliers.

Some 97 per cent of respondents – the same number as in last year’s survey – say system security is a very or fairly important concern through 2006. And 95 per cent rate information security equally highly.

Computing’s head of research, James Burckhardt, who conducted the survey, says IT managers see security as a priority because failures could expose them to close scrutiny.

‘A serious breach or denial of service attack could compromise critical information and bring down corporate systems,’ he said.  But priorities vary considerably between sectors, he says.

Regulation and compliance requirements significantly influence IT strategy in the finance sector, according to ImageTrak.  ‘Compliance continues to affect the whole of our company, and a lot of business change is driven by that,’ says John Worth, Prudential chief information officer.

The research also suggests that maintaining a balance between accessibility and security is an important consideration for public sector organisations.

‘The Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts loom large over much of what we want to do, particularly sharing information between departments in a single authority, never mind across different ones,’ said Jonathan Anderson, programme manager at Gloucestershire Electronic Partnership.

l See pages 33-42 for a full analysis of the ImageTrak 2005 survey