Houston: After HR, Finance and Accounting and supply chain Management, large corporations and Government agencies are turning to outside contractors for security.

Owing to the increased security threats, enterprises will outsource 90 per cent of security operations by 2010, driving the market for managed security services to $ 3.7 billion, according to a new study from the Yankee Group.

The increasing number of vulnerabilities and threats to communication systems is driving the rapid evolution of security technologies, says the Yankee analyst Matthew Kovar.

These developments are outpacing the enterprise's ability to keep up with the latest countermeasures and techniques to thwart attacks. Security is moving from the network perimeter further into the enterprise to critical network links, key hosts and servers, databases and end user workstations.

The network once defined how information is accessed and secured. Now, the applications and end users dictate how communications will be initiated, which affects the accessibility and security of information.

Besides, new regulations, most notably the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Sarbanes-Oxley, have forced CEOs and CFOs to think of security from a business standpoint, instead of just an IT department concern.