The Information Security Forum, an international security association, said on Monday that it calculates that many of its members expect to spend more than US$10 million on information security controls to comply with regulations laid down by Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).
US members of the ISF include MetLife, CitiGroup, Electronic Data Systems and Safeway.
ISF consultant Andy Jones said that though SOX was designed to improve corporate governance and accountability, it has proved difficult to interpret for information security professionals.
"As neither the legislation nor the official guidance specifically mentions the words 'information security,' the impact on security policy and the security controls that need to be put into place must be determined by each individual organisation in the context of their business," he said.
The ISF warns that SOX ignores security issues that are extremely important when dealing with risks to information, such as business continuity and disaster recovery. This makes it important to integrate compliance into a wider IT security and corporate governance strategy, it said.
Jones also warned that SOX could divert attention from more-pressing security risks: "For organisations whose business is not primarily financial, for example the manufacturing or product-service industries, the diversion of information security attention from other risk areas to SOX compliance may lead to important business risks being neglected."
"It is important that Sarbanes-Oxley does not push organisations into following a compliance-based approach rather than a risk-based approach that may compromise information security," he added.
As a long term IT Security Professional with nearly 20 years in the field, I see this as misleading. Security is about controls and governance of Business processes (for commercial firms).
The process should be about the business processes. It was always this way where people care about security. SOX is not difficult if done systematically and as a part of the business process.