Many firms now say security is not a just a cost but a way of managing and reducing risk

Nearly three-quarters of security professionals feel their organisation is more secure now than it was a year ago, according to research by Cisco.

A survey of chief security officers and IT directors also found that security is now recognised as a board-level issue in most firms, and 92 percent have acceptable usage policies and 81 percent have password policies.

"The results are perhaps surprising because they're so good," said Cisco's senior security advisor Paul King. "It shows we all must be doing something right – I'd like to think that the reason people feel more secure is that they have more confidence and better visibility into their [systems] through logging and management."

King added that firms increasingly see security not as an expense but a way of managing and reducing risk. In highly regulated industries, senior managers have been forced to take this approach because of legislation, elsewhere this change has developed organically, he said.

"In today's world to be a competitive business you must have the ability to take risks and this is a small part of that," King said.