ESG Sees Growth in Enterprises

MILFORD, Mass. -- The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a leading information technology (IT) analyst firm focused on information storage, security and management, today announced the availability of a new research report, Security Management Matures, a unique research study that examines the security management policies, procedures, and technologies at large organizations. ESG undertook this research project to assess how large organizations are managing security threats and to determine how security management practices complement regulatory compliance and IT operations efforts.

The new report is based upon a survey of 207 Information Security professionals responsible for evaluating, purchasing, and operating security management technologies at North American-based public and private organizations. Respondent organizations ranged in size from 1,000 to over 20,000 employees. The 49-page report includes data analysis presented in 35 figures and 9 tables.

The report uncovers an important trend: To analyze security events, regulatory compliance controls, and IT operations, large organizations are collecting a significant amount of log file data from security appliances, networking devices, and applications. Todays log data capacity will pale in comparison to impending requirements however, the report finds that large organizations will collect, store and analyze more log data from more sources in the very near future. For example:

The explosive growth in log data is a result of several drivers. First, large organizations are collecting more data from more sources to gain a wider purview of security threats and their ramifications on IT infrastructure. Second, log data analysis is used beyond security threat management alone. Business managers, IT operations, compliance administrators, and “C-level” executives are increasingly using log data analysis to monitor numerous business and IT metrics. Finally, firms are archiving more log data for longer periods of time for future analysis or as liability protection in the event of a legal discovery.

“Security management needs have significantly increased the value of log data but ESG’s research illustrates that analyzing log data provides benefits spanning across IT and the business,” said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst at ESG and the author of this report. “With more data available, lots of people are using log data for all kinds of analysis. Security managers are doing forensic investigations, compliance officers are monitoring the effectiveness of controls, and IT operations administrators are tracking device configurations and troubleshooting problems. The cycle here is clear: More data leads to more analysis and more analysis leads to further business benefits and ROI.”

Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)0