Why Do Organizations Purchase Security Software?

After presenting at the ISSA CISO forum, I got into this really interesting discussion as to why corporations purchase security software. Given that I've been struggling to understand why technologies are and aren't adopted (especially those from the CHI community), I was naturally intrigued.

The manager of Schlumberger's enterprise services security listed three reasons:

  • There was a recent security incident
  • There is a new regulation or policy in place
  • The organization failed an audit recently


I'd add a fourth one, which is that everyone else is doing it. These days, people purchase firewalls, spam filters, and anti-virus software almost as a matter of fact.

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