Global Cybersecurity Spending to Reach $76.9 Billion in 2015: Gartner

As organizations worldwide become more and more aware of the risks posed by the lack of protection against cyber threats, information security spending will continue to increase, Gartner forecasts.

According to the IT research and advisory firm, global IT security spending will reach $71.1 billion this year, which represents an increase of 7.9% compared to 2013. Next year, spending will grow even more, reaching $76.9 billion.

The use of security solutions will be driven in the next couple of years by the rapid adoption of mobile, cloud, social and information technologies, which often interact with each other, Gartner said.

“This Nexus of Forces is impacting security in terms of new vulnerabilities. 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” explained Gartner research director Lawrence Pingree.

By 2015, approximately 10% of the security controls deployed by organizations will be cloud-based, particularly when it comes to small and midsize businesses.

“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. More than 30% of security controls deployed to the small or midsize business (SMB) segment will be cloud-based by 2015,” Gartner said.

Over the past three years, organizations in the United States have increased cybersecurity spending partly due to regulatory pressure. Data protection laws that have already been introduced and ones that will be implemented over the upcoming period in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are expected to accelerate spending on IT security solutions in these parts of the world as well.

Gartner says managed security services are growing all over the world as more and more organizations come to realize that they lack the skills necessary to implement and operate proper data protection and privacy controls. The company believes that more than half of organizations will address compliance requirements and improve their security posture by using security services providers that specialize in infrastructure and risk management, and data protection.

Security solutions providers are expected to sell newer types of services, such as data loss prevention (DLP) and security information and event management (SIEM), through suite offerings. In fact, the company forecasts that by the end of 2015, roughly 30% of infrastructure protection products will be purchased as part of a suite offering.

Currently, many consumers still don’t realize that their mobile devices are just as vulnerable to hacker attacks as their desktop computers, but this will likely change from 2017 onward when Gartner believes new market opportunities will emerge.

In its latest global technology M&A update, professional services firm Ernst & Young revealed that IT security contributed to a record-setting number of deals. The company reported that technology mergers and acquisitions soared by 57% year-over-year.