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.