Survey: German IT Security Spending Remains Constant

PRESS RELEASE

Berlin, July 20, 2010 - German companies are not responding to the economic crisis by economizing on IT security. This conclusion was the result of a survey conducted by eleven, the leading German e-mail security service provider, in conjunction with the German IT security magazine IT-Sicherheit. 64 percent of companies have not cut spending on IT security in any way, and have no plans to do so in the future despite the current economic situation. Only 13 percent stated that they had cut spending in this area. "The survey shows that many enterprises have understood that they jeopardize their long-term business success if they economize on IT security," noted Robert Rothe, founder and CEO of eleven.

The economic situation has also had no effect on the trend toward outsourcing IT security to external service providers: 60 percent of those surveyed stated that it played no role in their decision-making to outsource parts or all of their IT security. Cost is thus clearly not a key factor in deciding whether to outsource; the most important motivation stated was the expertise of the service provider (29 percent). Survey participants were asked to list the areas in which outsourcing IT security makes the most sense. E-mail security topped the list at 27 percent, followed by Web security (22 percent) and backup/archiving (21 percent).

The topic of data security was critical to the decision to outsource e-mail security solutions, according to the survey: 70 percent of those responding named the service provider's location as a significant factor in decision-making, in particular whether the provider is located in a country with strict data protection laws. 16 percent even said that the protection of their data would be an important reason to outsource IT security solutions.

"In companies of every size, we're observing a clear trend toward outsourcing e-mail security. Managed services do more than just improve business security by keeping electronic threats away from the enterprise, they also enable greater cost efficiency because costs can be planned over the long term, and they make it possible to reduce both work hours and hardware significantly," notes Robert Rothe.

eleven - E-mail security "Made in Germany" eleven is a leading e-mail security provider based in Germany. Its eXpurgate technology, which is unique worldwide, offers a spam filter and e-mail categorization service that protects the user reliably from spam and phishing, detects potentially dangerous e-mail and can distinguish between individual messages and any kind of mass e-mail. eXpurgate also offers numerous virus protection options and a powerful e-mail firewall.

Over 45,000 companies of all sizes use eXpurgate to check and categorize more than a billion e-mail messages every day. Customers include Internet service providers and telecommunication carriers such as T-Online, O2, Vodafone and freenet as well as many well-known companies and public institutions, including Air Berlin, the Federal Association of German Banks, DATEV, the Free University of Berlin, Landesbank Berlin, Mazda, RTL, ThyssenKrupp and Tobit Software AG. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.eleven.de.

Company contact: eleven GmbH Sascha Krieger Hardenbergplatz 2