More companies in the market for CSOs

Many companies now consider a chief security officer a necessity. Although the recession has forced companies to spend less on outsourced security, it turns out that security budgets are holding firm--they have to.

A new survey by CSO and CIO magazines finds that 7,000 businesses worldwide in government, health care, financial services and retail believe a CSO is an important addition to their staff, not a frivolous one.

"I have seen examples where companies are making bigger investments in training over time to make internal staff more security savvy," says Miguel Lopez, a Los Angeles-based IT security practitioner who has worked for such companies as MSC Software and Stamps.com.

Companies may still have problems finding the best quality of data security, but most executives agreed that security cannot be ignored, according to the survey reported by CIO magazine. The CIO also found that more than 60 percent of those surveyed said their budgets will hold steady or increase in the next year. Only 12 percent said their spending on security would drop. The survey found that 85 percent of respondents are hiring CSOs or chief information security officers (CISOs). That's a dramatic increase, up from 56 percent last year and 43 percent in 2006.

The real question becomes whether there are tools good enough to prevent most hack attacks? And the answer is: Probably not.

For more on CSOs:
- see this CIO.com article

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