Tufin Technologies has warned that companies are making cost savings at the expense of IT security.

Any analysis of Tufin’s Infosecurity Europe Survey, confirms that 48 per cent of businesses focus their efforts on reducing expenditure at the expense of security. In addition, 27 per cent of IT security experts responded that the IT security budget is being spent on compliance issues that do not improve security.

IT security specialists from 119 organisations took part in the survey and Shaul Efraim, Tufin's vice president of Marketing and Business Development, says these findings are of great concern for security professionals.

The figures show the current economic environment is starting to reshape the way that IT security is deployed within organisations - and not always for the better. “Whilst economic stringency can initially have a positive effect on management processes in many companies”, he said,"the longer-term consequences tend not to be anywhere near as favourable". "From an audit and governance perspective, this is potentially bad news, as it means that the normal efficient business and management processes are being subverted by financial cuts. This cannot be good for any organisation over time," he said.

In 2012, 62 per cent of respondents report the average firewall rule base has 100’s of rules. This is a 14 per cent increase from the previous survey conducted in 2011, which speaks to the growing complexity of large enterprise networks.