What prevents IT professionals from setting up the best possible security programs? For most IT security managers, there are two primary answers: High costs and justifying those costs to management.

Consulting firm INS interviewed 84 IT professionals from companies around the world, large and small, in a variety of industries. For most of these, buying the necessary tools shouldn't be such an issue: the budgets for almost half ranged from $10 million to over $50 million.

But organizational barriers seem to be growing worse. Since 2003, the number of respondents who said it's harder to justify new-equipment costs increased 20 percent. Those who said that other projects had higher priority than IT security rose 10 percent and those who feel that upper management doesn't provide adequate support rose 11 percent.

Read theINS Industry Survey.