US federal IT heads less confident about their security despite spending a fortune on protection

US federal IT decision-makers are less confident about their network security arrangements compared to previous years, despite high spending on government mandated schemes, according to research.

A Cisco survey of over 200 government IT officials across 30 civilian and military institutions showed up the lack of confidence in existing systems to counter network threats.

Widespread spyware and Web 2.0 concerns fuelled the lack of confidence, said Cisco. It said the advent of IPv6 networks to help improve security and performance of networks was winning support among government officials, but that the take-up of IPv6 was still very low.

Whilst half the respondents were contended with incompatible stand-alone products, more than 80% believed that embedding and integrating network security safeguards was critical for improving their agency's security.

Nearly 60% of respondents expected IPv6 to improve their agencies' security architecture. However, only one-third said their agencies are developing or have developed an IPv6 security architecture.