With security threats increasing and regulation tightening, companies are demanding greater IT accountability – and that can mean being forced to walk the plank after a breach. AOL fired a researcher and a manager last week, and CTO Maureen Govern resigned after the Dulles, Va., company posted data on search queries made by 650,000 AOL subscribers. Ohio University dismissed two senior IT people this month following news of five security vulnerabilities that exposed the sensitive records of 137,000 alumni. Fallout from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ security debacle is ongoing. The agency fired the analyst who took home a laptop containing data on 26 million veterans that was stolen when burglars broke into his home. That doesn’t fly today. If a company is spending 5% of its IT budget on security, it expects a payoff. “The business side of the organization has learned to live with accountability and is able to talk about revenues and returns,” John Pescatore, a security analyst at Gartner says. “IT is getting dragged there, too.”