Cisco recently announced a second and final set of findings from annual research on remote workers' impact on corporate security, revealing that three of every five IT decision makers plan to increase security spending within the next year.

Commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm, the study features surveys of more than 2,000 remote workers and IT professionals from various industries in 10 countries: US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, India, Australia, and Brazil. Sixty-two percent of IT respondents reported that they will increase security-related spending in 2008, and of those, more than half (37 percent) said their increased security investments will rise by more than 10 percent as compared to their previous years' budgets.

One of the most intriguing findings involves global demographics, which play a significant role in worldwide security spending trends. The highest percentage of IT decision makers who plan to boost spending are from nations that are relative newcomers to widespread Internet and IP-based corporate networking. Of the 10 countries in the study, China, India, and Brazil feature the highest number of IT decision makers who are not only planning to increase spending in general, but the largest percentage who will increase security investments by more than 10 percent year-over-year.

According to John N. Stewart, Cisco's chief security officer, China, India, and Brazil represent three of the world's fastest growing economies, and their dependence on the Internet and corporate networks is rising rapidly. The study indicates that risky behaviour from remote workers in these three countries, such as opening suspicious emails, hijacking wireless networks from neighbours, or sharing corporate devices with non-employees. As a result, this behavioural trend could contribute to the jump in IT security spending.

"During the past few years, virus attacks caused the most damage in countries where Internet adoption was greatest. Remote workers often represent the intersection of 'employee' and 'consumer,' a connection point where attacks target and exploit the networks and corporate devices that remote workers use away from their offices. For multinational corporations and the IT departments that support them, understanding their employee's level of security awareness and experience is key in fostering tighter relationships, building trust, and administering effective education programs that will ultimately help to protect the enterprise."

Stewart says, "Businesses need firewalls, virtual private networks, and data protection technologies. The challenge is how to minimise other costs that could have been prevented through sustained education of employees, such as managing malware outbreaks and data theft. Increasing employee awareness through sustained education reduces threats, attacks, and the painful price tags they typically carry."