News

By Chris Tribbey

Considering all the recent, high-profile cyber security breaches, it’s a scary time for governments, businesses and consumers. But these constant security threats also mean big business for those working to protect information.

A new report from research firm Gartner has worldwide information security spending hitting $71.1 billion by the end of 2014, an 8% year-over-year increase, with the data loss prevention segment seeing the largest annual growth (19%). And with the increasing use of mobile, cloud and social services necessitating more security feature, Gartner doesn’t see the cyber security business slowing down: in 2015, nearly $77 billion will be spent to secure content and information.

“This nexus of forces is impacting security in terms of new vulnerabilities,” said Gartner research director Lawrence Pingree. “It is also creating new opportunities to improve effectiveness, particularly as a result of better understanding security threats by using contextual information and other security intelligence.”

Pingree said the increase in cyber security investments is the result of a relatively new threat to both companies and consumers: the easy availability of malicious malware and infrastructure that can be used to launch advanced (and targeted) attacks.

“This has led to increased awareness among organizations that would have traditionally treated security as an IT function and a cost center,” Pingree added.

The report notes that by 2015, approximately 10% of IT security enterprise product capabilities will be delivered in the cloud, which is drastically changing how security is supplied to customers. More than 30% of security controls deployed to small or mid-sized businesses will be cloud-based by 2015, according to Gartner.

“While cloud-based services’ competitive pricing puts pressure on the market, the cloud is also providing new growth opportunities, as some organizations switch from deploying on-premises products to cloud-based services or cloud-managed products,” the report reads.

Other tidbits from the Gartner report:

• By the end 2015, approximately 30% of infrastructure protection products will be purchased as part of a suite offering.

• By 2018, half of all organizations will look to security firms that specialize in data protection, security risk management and security infrastructure management.

• Mobile security will become a higher priority for consumers, as more consumers demand the same level of protection for their smartphones and tablets that they receive for desktops and laptops.