Security is
always a concern for IT professionals, and media news reports of breaches and
leaks, combined with internal threats, have further increased worries.

A recent Tech
Pro Research survey focused on IT security. The survey attracted 244 respondents from around the globe and from
organizations of all sizes. The resulting report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans, focuses on the key elements from the survey.

In the survey, budgets were
a hot subject. Overall, 41 percent of respondents said they will increase their
IT security budget next year. This is a 16 percent increase compared to the
number of budgets that rose in 2013. In addition, only 13 percent of all
respondents said they plan to decrease their security budget next year.

About two-thirds
of the respondents said they are more concerned now with security, after media
news reports of breaches and leaks. However, only large organizations with more
than 1,000 employees are planning to improve IT security controls. Smaller
companies are lagging behind in implementation of IT security controls.

Security projects were also discussed, with the top project for 2013 the same as 2014: Development of better risk management processes.

One of the
top concerns for businesses in 2014 will be Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Lack
of employee awareness in regard to social engineering attacks was the number
one concern in 2013 but moved to second place for 2014, with BYOD taking the
top slot. BYOD has been such an ongoing topic that Tech Pro Research created a ready-made BYOD policy that companies can download to use as their own policy.

The report also addresses the following IT security topics:

– Employee awareness challenges

– Improved risk management leads

– Moving to risk management

– Managing internal threats

– BYOD challenges

Download the full Tech Pro Research report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans