The glass is half empty for the UK's directors and chief executives

Senior board-level executives in the UK have very low expectations regarding network security in their companies in 2006, newly published research has claimed.

An online poll conducted by YouGov in February 2006 found a uniformly low level of confidence, with 38 per cent of respondents stating that their organisations will be victims of successful cyber-crime attacks in 2006.

However, the study suggested that even this low level of confidence could be misplaced as a third of senior managers could not say whether their company's security was breached in 2005.

Despite continually escalating security budgets (15 per cent growth last year according to Infonetics Research) confidence levels in security provision have not increased among the majority of senior managers.

Nearly three quarters of respondents agreed that security issues are now a 'fact of business life'. Senior managers may also be losing faith in the ability of their teams, or technology, to stay on top of the security challenge.

When asked how senior managers' confidence could be improved, the most popular response was 'better understanding of the issue myself'.

The research, commissioned by security firm nCircle, investigated the attitudes of 293 senior managers, including company directors and chief executives, in medium to large companies of 250 employees or more.

"Many current security strategies are not winning the war, either in the fight against cyber-crime or to win the confidence of their senior managers," said Kevin Lamb, director of EMEA operations at nCircle.