Security

Report: InfoSec Spending to Grow 7 Percent in 2017

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 08/17/17

Global spending on information security will increase 7 percent year over year to hit $86.4 billion in 2017, according to a new forecast from market research firm Gartner. That growth will continue into 2018, when the company predicts spending to reach $93 billion.

"Rising awareness among CEOs and boards of directors about the business impact of security incidents and an evolving regulatory landscape have led to continued spending on security products and services," said Sid Deshpande, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a prepared statement.

Security services will see the fastest growth, with IT outsourcing, consulting and implementation leading the way. Hardware support services, on the other hand, will see slowed growth as wider adoption of virtual appliances, public cloud and software-as-a-service solutions are more widely adopted, reducing the need for on-premises hardware.

The security testing market will see fast growth from a small base owing to continued data breaches and increased demand for application security testing within the infrastructure protection segment. Emerging application security testing tools will push growth in infrastructure protection throughout the forecast period, according to Gartner, which closes in 2021.

However, improving security takes more than spending on new technologies, Deshpande commented in the statement. “As seen in the recent spate of global security incidents, doing the basics right has never been more important. Organizations can improve their security posture significantly just by addressing basic security and risk related hygiene elements like threat-centric vulnerability management, centralized log management, internal network segmentation, backups and system hardening."

In addition, the portion of managed security service contracts bundled with other security services or IT outsourcing services will double by 2020, from 20 percent now to 40 percent, according to the forecast, as the range and maturity of bundling options grows.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation will drive nearly two-thirds — 65 percent — of data loss prevention purchases through next year. The regulation will extend beyond the E.U. as multinational companies doing business in Europe are forced to comply.