2011 State of the CSO

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

The 8th Annual CSO Magazine State of the CSO report was released last month – I finally got my hands on a copy.  Thanks Colin!

Sidenote: Nice timing on finding this report since October is Cyber Security Month….read more on getting prepared for Cyber Security Month in Jerry Bishop’s recent Enterprise CIO Forum post.

The 2011 State of the CSO report outlines the results gathered from 229 respondents during a survey in March 2011.

Some key highlights from the survey:

• Fewer than 2/3’s of security professionals believe their organization’s employees are trained on security related topics
• Only 35% of respondents believe their organization’s employees consider security to be party of their daily responsibilities
• Nearly 1/3 of respondents plan to add staff to the security function of the organization
• Roughly 38% of respondents are planning an increase in security in the coming year
• 64% of respondents agree that senior management view security and the security leaders as important, permanent and strategic
• More than 60% of respondents believe that senior leadership is placing more value on security and risk management

Some interested responses but not surprising to me.  I’m not a Security pro at all but I would think that most organizations are focusing a good deal of effort and budget on ensuring both IT and Physical Security are improved throughout the enterprise.

One aspect that I found interesting is the area  focused on current and future trends that will most affect the security profession.  The responses were interesting…they are:

• 26% of respondents pointing to ‘ubiquitous data’ as having the largest impact on the security profession
• 21% of respondents believing technology as a service as having a large impact.
• 20% believe that  Gen Y & Millennials entering the workplace will have a considerable impact on the security profession.

Some interesting results there. Ubiquitous Data, defined by the survey as the ability for users to have constant access to data and services, is getting closer to being a reality for all organizations.

To grab a copy of the 2011 State of the CSO Report, jump over to CSO Magazine and sign up for access.

Image Credit: Security By edleckert on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.