INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: SECURITY MARKET GROWS 25% IN 2002.

• Position: Brief Article

In spite of European companies' tendency to make drastic cuts in their information technology investments, the IT security market is still very dynamic, registering growth of 25% in 2002, reports a White paper published jointly by Group Bull and IDC research institute. Given the growing number of hacking threats (21,000 attacks reported world-wide in 2000, 53,000 in 2001 and already more than 73,000 for the first three quarters of 2002), European businesses have invested a total of USUSD 5 billion in IT security (hardware, software and services), a 25% increase over 2001. The security investment represents an average of 1.8% of European IT investments in 2002. But big firms spend more than this average, with nearly 5% of their IT budget going to security, the White Paper states.

The study, carried out last October...