Research

The Global State of Information Security 2003

From a worldwide study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CIO magazine, we look at where infosec is in 2003 and where it's going.

By Scott Berinato

But no one hits .400 anymore, despite the fact that hitters use better equipment and have access to advanced training technologies. The reason, Gould asserted, is because everything, notably pitching and fielding, has improved around them. When baseball was young, no one knew the best way to pitch or the best strategy for positioning fielders. Over time, data has been analyzed and best practices have emerged. Everyone gets so good at what they do, Gould asserted, that there is less room for deviation from the norm. Indeed, batting averages increasingly vary less and less from the century-old average of .260.

Information security in 2003 is where baseball was in 1922. There's wild variation in how well companies secure their enterprises. But data will accrete, best practices will emerge, information security will normalize, and everyone will move toward the mean.

Until then, however, some companies are Ty Cobb, and many, many others can't bat their weight.

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