Last year, spending on business security software was $408 million. Sounds like a large number — but we spent around $770 million on potato crisps.
Crisps picture from Shutterstock
The $408 million comes from Gartner, and is up 8 per cent on the previous year. Globally, Symantec was the biggest vendor, followed by McAfee, IBM, Trend Micro and EMC.
Security is constantly said to be a major concern for IT, and close on half a billion dollars isn’t small change. However, in an economy worth $1.5 trillion, it’s not a lot to spend on insurance (if you assume that’s the main role that security software plays, which isn’t always the case). Hey, anyone want a crisp?
Comments
4 responses to “Australia Spends More On Potato Crisps Than Security Software”
*chips.
Software should be secure by design, if not (Windows XP), then it should be abandoned. Security software probably won’t save you from a zero-day, but patches will save you from everything else.
Also Angus, why does “always the case” link to this article?
If not (Windows and any other closed source software). You have to remember that Windows XP without service packs and then later with service packs, was what the general public used. But the general public has never seen the source to XP, Vista or 7 so we have no idea what accidental or malicious code lays in them. In 5 years time people will look at 7 in the same way they look at XP now. I don’t worry about what we now know (XP isn’t receiving new patches) but instead worry about what we don’t know about 7 yet. Any government that relies on closed source software for security at any level in their stack is a fool. They have absolutely no way of verifying anything about what is going on behind the scenes.
What about OpenSSL? Heartbleed and the more recent flaws?
“Open Source = always more secure” is a myth. Sure the source is there, but it bring ‘open’ is not enough to automatically mean it’s security > closed source.
Source for the Gartner Statistic? I can’t find it and everything I find says it was higher than that number.
To be fair, potato chips are much tastier than security software.