Even as high-profile data leaks grab headlines and compliance auditors begin making their rounds, many chief information security officers are preparing to trim their budgets. According to a new survey of North American CISOs released by New York-based investment bankers Merrill Lynch & Co., enterprises are hoping to throttle down their spending on new IT security technologies over the second half of 2006. On average, the IT security executives interviewed by Merrill Lynch said they only plan to increase spending by 2.9 percent over the next 12-18 months, whereas CISOs had indicated plans to increase spending by 11.4 percent when the survey was last conducted in March 2006. Among the trends driving the reduced spending on IT security is the growing inclusion of defensive features built into technologies such as network equipment and Microsoft’s next-generation Windows Vista operating system.