Shareholders, governments, partners and customers are becoming increasingly aware of information technology (IT) security as a number of incidents have shown the vulnerability of sensitive data.
While most IT departments were previously content to adopt in-house solutions to protect their information in the boom years, many chief information officers are now investing in Managed Security Services (MSS) to ensure this function stays strong.
MSS has been available for a number of years, fuelled largely by the business process outsourcing trend and the proliferation of high-speed internet.
However, many organisations have been slow to take up MSS because they are reluctant to hand over control of this function to an outsider. This has all changed with the economic downturn. Many boards are demanding a significant reduction in costs, lower capital expenditure and lower costs of ownership - and IT departments are typically first to come under the spotlight.
Outsourcing security to an MSS provider is seen as a good way to achieve this.
'It allows costs to be transferred from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, reducing the need for depreciation of hardware and other assets, replacing them with predictable costs based on a subscription model,' said Paul Wood, a senior analyst with e-mail security services firm MessageLabs.
