Survey: homeland security IT initiatives nearly completed

Most homeland security IT initiatives may be near completion for federal agencies governmentwide, according to the new 2005 Federal IT Marketing Report published by Market Connections Inc., a Fairfax, Va.-based market research firm.

The findings are based on a survey of 600 federal IT professionals, including 181 from Defense agencies, 44 from the Homeland Security Department and 375 from other civilian agencies.

Nearly one-third ? 32 percent ? of the IT professionals surveyed have initiatives in the works related to homeland security; 54 percent say their IT budgets have increased due to homeland security.

However, those anti-terrorism IT projects appear to be in the final stages. Forty-six percent of the respondents said they had completed at least 75 percent of their homeland security IT initiatives. Thirty-six percent had completed between 50 percent and 75 percent of the projects. Only 19 percent had accomplished less than half of IT initiatives.

The five most important homeland security IT initiatives reported were IT security, physical security, disaster recovery, threat assessments and threat response.

The least important IT initiatives were information-sharing with the public, support of state and local agencies, information-sharing between agencies and adapting existing technology, the report said.

The eight most important IT solutions within homeland security were virus protection software, information security, firewalls, secure data networks, cyberattack detection software, information assurance, network management software and disaster recovery software, the report said.