Data Security Predictions For 2010

Despite a widespread economic recession, data security remained surprisingly resistant to enterprise budget pressures in 2009. To help clients understand this fast-paced market, we predicted six major data security trends entering 2009. So how'd we do? We got two right, two wrong, and two too close to tell. As expected, enterprises purchased more data leak prevention (DLP) software. They increased their full disk encryption rollouts — but not as quickly as we predicted. We were too optimistic about client virtualization adoption, and it is too early to tell if entitlements will become a CEO-level concern. Heading into 2010, we are predicting five new data security trends: 1) Enterprises will keep their data security budgets relatively flat; 2) market penetration for DLP tools will increase even as prices fall by half; 3) cloud data security concerns will begin to dissipate; 4) full disk encryption will continue its steady march into the enterprise, spurred on by breach disclosure laws; and 5) enterprises will give enterprise rights management (ERM) software a second look as an enforcement option coupled with DLP.