10 Steps for Stretching Your IT Security Budget

A whopping 1.9 billion data records were breached during the first half of the year, marking a 164% jump from the same time a year ago. But despite the never-ending rise in attacks and breaches, only 35% of IT professionals expect their organizations to increase security spending in the next 12 months, according to recent surveys.

In other words, IT security budget increases clearly are not keeping up with the rate of breaches and attacks. But despite this shortfall, IT security leaders may have more tools and tricks at their disposal to stretch their budgets than they realize. For example, ever think of joining one of the local security groups on Meetup.com to vet potential hires, rather than plunking down money for a recruiting firm? Or using free tools such as network scanner Nmap, or free apps from IT social media community Spiceworks?

Here are 10 top tips to stretch IT security budgets.