IT security pros feeling safer

Cisco survey finds the security industry 'making progress and moving forward'

IT professionals feel more confident in dealing with security incidents and attacks today than they did in 2005, according to research from Cisco Systems. 

Of the 100 IT security officers surveyed, 72 per cent said that they feel more secure than they did 12 months ago.

Paul King, senior security advisor at Cisco, suggested that the report showed that the security industry is making progress and moving forward.

"We wanted to take a finger on the pulse to see what everyone was thinking, so we put together a series of questions without any preconceptions either way, " he said.

"It was quite encouraging to see that the majority felt they were actually making progress and felt more secure than they did 12 months ago."

The research comes despite the growth in incidents and the increasing sophistication of attacks over recent years, prompting analysts to question whether it was a true reflection of the industry.

"I think it's a somewhat optimistic view of the situation," said Graham Titterington, principal analyst at Ovum. 

"The nature of the threats is changing and we are seeing fewer mass attacks such as big worms that spread themselves about and we're getting better at defending against them.

"That's the good news. The bad news is that there is a rapidly increasing amount of targeted criminal activity on the web, so the threat is quieter but it's probably more serious."

However, King maintained that there is no correlation between feeling more secure and being attacked less.

"I think it is probably because the awareness is so good now, because one of the big fears in security is what you don't know," he said.

"As people get better on security and start using better monitoring, they might see more hits and attempts. But because they are picking them up that can leave them feeling more secure."

The research also found that the days when IT departments simply had to react to problems rather than planning for them were coming to an end. Only 11 per cent of those polled take a 'reactive only' approach to IT security.

However, the survey found that 23 per cent of respondents felt that security is still not recognised as a boardroom-level issue.