Research and advisory giant Gartner predicts that global security and risk management spending will exceed $150 billion this year.
The company forecasts that information security and risk management will grow by more than 12 percent in 2021. Spending in these segments increased by more than 6 percent in 2020.
Gartner says nearly half of the total, roughly $72 billion, will be spent on security services, including consulting, hardware support, and implementation and outsourced services. Significant amounts of money will also be invested in infrastructure protection ($24 billion), network security equipment ($17 billion), and identity access management ($14 billion).
The company believes less than a billion will be spent on cloud security, which it described as the “smallest but fastest growing market segment.”
“Organizations continue to grapple with the security and regulatory demands of public cloud and software as a service,” said Lawrence Pingree, managing research vice president at Gartner. “Looking ahead, we’re seeing early market signals of growing automation and further adoption of machine learning technologies in support of AI security. To combat attacks, organizations will extend and standardize threat detection and response activities.”
Related: Information Security Spending to Reach $93 Billion in 2018: Gartner
Related: Cybersecurity VC Funding Hit Record in 2020 With $7.8 Billion Invested

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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