Making the Best Use of Your Security Budget in Lean Times: Four Approaches

By Elizabeth Ireland, Vice President Marketing, nCircle Ltd

Many predict 2009 will produce the tightest economic conditions in decades. The subprime meltdown, tight credit markets and recession conditions will mean most CIOs will feel the downward spiral of the economy right where it hurts -- in their IT budgets.

Unfortunately, this also coincides with the most serious threat environment security professionals have faced. Hackers’ tactics are becoming more targeted. The increase in the number and business importance of web applications is generating additional enterprise risk. Budgets may get tight, but your responsibility remains the same: minimize risk.

It’s a tall order in the face of possible spending cutbacks, but because budgets are tight, you have to be focused on how to best reduce risk, and it definitely doesn’t mean less attention on security. In fact, at times like these, that may be the biggest mistake. The highest levels of an organization are asking their CIOs “how do we know we’re secure?” The only way you will know that is by understanding the risks, better understanding the ROI, and how it fits into not only your other IT priorities, but also adds to the company’s bottom line. Defending the security budget is always a challenge, but here are four approaches that can help.

1. Metrics make the most compelling argument. Ask yourself this question: Is your security risk going up or down over time and what is impacting it? This is baseline data that every organization needs and should be on track to monitor. If you cannot answer this clearly, realign your projects and priorities to make sure you can get this information on an ongoing basis. Every CIO should know at least three things: how vulnerable are my systems, how safely configured are my systems, and are we prioritizing the security of the highest value assets to the business? Though security metrics are in the early days of development and adoption, the industry is maturing and solid measurements are available. These areas can be assessed and assigned an objective numeric score, allowing you to set your company’s own risk tolerance and use that to make critical decisions about where to allocate funds. As you face increased budget scrutiny, the metrics allow you to identify – and defend as necessary-- where your security priorities are, and how security and risk fit into overall ROI.

2. Compare your baseline to others in your industry. The guarded nature of security data means CIOs trying to access this type of information will have to get creative. A good place to start is the Center for Internet Security -- their consensus baseline configurations can be used as a jumping off point to identify areas of risk. Vertical industry benchmarks will be an evolving area, and another source may be what you can learn from your personal relationships. Seek out others within your industry and find out what metrics they are using and what they are spending as a percentage of their IT budget. Risk tolerance is specific to each organization, but there are similarities within industries that could prove to be helpful.

3. Learn from other areas in your company. Many process-oriented disciplines can be a good area as a proxy for the type of evolution facing security; network operations are a good example. In the early days of network operations, the only scrutiny came if things weren’t working correctly. Over the years, it has matured to a level of operational metrics for uptime and performance, and is embedded in quarterly and annual performance goals. These metrics allow a continuous cycle of performance, measurement and improvement. In addition, network operations can provide an important lesson of single solution economies of scale. Find solutions that work across your entire enterprise—this is the only way to get economies of scale in implementation and ensure you get the critical enterprise-wide risk information that can deliver the metrics you need.

4. Take steps to automate your compliance process. Are you compliant and can you routinely deliver the reports that auditors request? The economic benefits that come from doing this correctly are significant. Audit costs are directly related to how complicated it is to audit and prove the integrity of a business process, so finding a way to save the auditors’ time is one of the single biggest opportunities to drive down costs. Even though your audit costs may be hitting the finance area’s budget, meet with your company’s finance team to understand what audits are costing you, and how the right kind of automation could lessen them and there will certainly be time and resource savings for the security team as well. There isn’t an exact recipe for compliance automation, so talk to your auditors, look at your environment, and begin the discovery of how much time is spent preparing for and reacting to audits. If you’re a company that allows your divisions to individually automate, it’s time to think about taking those principles enterprise-wide.

Regardless of budget conditions, you will still be faced with decisions on which projects have the biggest impact on the business. The threat environment requires that you make the absolute best decisions with your available budget by investing in the right places and getting better use of your resources. Lastly, remember that times of difficulty are often the times of opportunity. Lessons learned now in the face of tighter budgets can spark valuable models of efficiency and progress for the future.

nCircle Ltd is exhibiting at Infosecurity Europe 2009, the No. 1 industry event in Europe held on 28th – 30th April in its new venue Earl’s Court, London. The event provides an unrivalled free education programme, exhibitors showcasing new and emerging technologies and offering practical and professional expertise. For further information please visit www.infosec.co.uk

Courtesy: Inforsecurity PR
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