This year's Infrastructure Strategies 2005 (IS 2005) survey shows that security has matured from being a marginal investment to a necessary (and larger) element of the IT budget. IS 2005 reveals increasing levels of existing security investments among organizations over the years (47 percent in 2003, 55 percent in 2004 and 59 percent in 2005). Among the issues to be addressed with these investments, viruses (85 percent of organisations) and Internet security (58 percent) are the most critical for Indian businesses. On the planned investment front, 55 percent of Indian businesses plan to invest in security during the present fiscal. This can be attributed to the fact that most organisations have made their initial investments and they are taking care of marginal maintenance.

Tech Talk :Viruses and Internet security are top of the security agenda for most Indian organisations. It is not surprising to see that most companies focus primarily on anti-virus and firewalls for protection. Of the respondents who have made security investments, 97 percent have already invested in anti-virus solutions and 78 percent in firewalls during the previous fiscal. This covers only the network perimeter. Advanced protection mechanisms such as intrusion detection systems and access control mechanisms need to be present for comprehensive security coverage. Presently, only 42 percent of organizations have invested in these. On the IDS front, BFSI (68 percent), BPO (65 percent) and oil/power (60 percent) have reasonable adoption levels. 50 percent of the telecom companies surveyed have invested in integrated security appliances and identity management. Access control and biometric devices are favourites with BPO and oil/power; 70 percent and 30 percent of companies in these verticals have adopted these technologies respectively. Indian organizations plan to invest in firewalls (52 percent) and anti-virus (50 percent) during the present fiscal. IDS and access control investments are on the anvil for 34 percent and 28 percent of organizations respectively. A majority of telecom and oil/power organizations plan to invest in IDS during the present fiscal (83 and 60 percent respectively). Apart from this, 66 percent and 83 percent of companies in the telecommunications vertical plan to invest in integrated security appliances and access control devices respectively.