IT security can be a tough sell when solution providers try to convince customers to buy products and services to prevent something from happening that many are not sure is actually occurring. Customers are aware that IT security is getting more complex, but unless they have been victimized in a way they can see, there is a tendency to want to limit investments in IT security technologies that don’t provide an easily identifiable ROI. A new survey of 500 U.S. IT and business executives conducted by CompTIA shows higher awareness of security issues relating to mobile and cloud computing. But in terms of acquiring security products beyond the basic anti-virus software and firewalls that every organization deploys, progress has been slow, the study finds. Data loss prevention (DLP) technologies tend to be fairly widely adopted, but just about every other IT security product category falls below the 50 percent level in terms of adoption. That lack of adoption may, however, represent an opportunity for solutions providers to push those products and services more aggressively in 2014, especially as the relative IT security maturity of the average organization continues to increase.