Industry researcher Gartner, Inc. has issued a report predicting that the worldwide spend on IT security is in the midst of an 8.4 percent uptick in 2012, and it is expected to continue to rise through 2016. The $60 billion anticipated for 2012 compares to $55 billion last year, with a projected spend at $86 billion in 2016.
According to the report, entitled "Forecast Overview: Security Infrastructure, Worldwide, 2010-2016, 2Q12 Update", roughly 45 percent of the responding CIOs anticipated increases to their security budgets, while 50 percent expected their security budgets to remain flat. Only 5 percent of CIOs were anticipating budget decreases. Respondents from some emerging markets, such as Brazil, China and India, anticipated increases that were higher than the worldwide averages.
Advanced persistent threats, enhanced targeting efforts, and the increased sophistication of attacks were spotlighted as key reasons for the budget increases. Gartner predicts that organizations will continue to seek the security expertise necessary to mitigate the vulnerabilities and address whatever circumstances might arise.
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"Security technologies and services tend to get a boost from the criminal element and the additional fraud that ensues during tougher economic times," said Gartner Research Director Lawrence Pingree. "This runs counter to what you would see for other markets."
Managed security services, gateway appliances, and security information and event management (SIEM) are identified as the fastest growing market segments, while cloud-based security received an honorable mention for above-average growth.
"Managed security services are especially doing well," according to Pingree. "Enterprise customers have largely adopted security technologies and have already addressed compliance. So the attackers are now moving down the business stack into the smaller companies and midmarket where there is often better opportunity for their success. This has driven lot of smaller entities that don't have a large budget to begin outsourcing their security needs. We have a five-year CAGR for managed security services at 16.8 percent.
"Security has become context aware and often leverages external data," Pingree continued. "This improvement in detection and mitigation is driving a technology refresh. For example, there is an ongoing movement away from traditional firewalls and towards next-generation firewalls. There's also a refresh in the web and email Gateway markets to increase the effectiveness of those appliances."
PUBLISHED SEPT. 13, 2012
