Enterprise information security spending in India to grow 12% in 2019: Gartner

Enterprise information security spending in India is on pace to grow to $1.86 billion in 2019, a 12.4 per cent rise from 2018, as digital transformation is boosting enterprise security spending, according to a forecast by Gartner.

“The increased awareness on the benefits of risk assessment and the acknowledgement that security is one of the enablers of digital transformation are boosting enterprise security spending in India. In addition, the rise in advanced cyber-attacks, ransomware and malware attacks has made cybersecuritya top investment priority for Indian Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), therefore, increasing spending on security locally,” Prateek Bhajanka, principal research analyst at Gartner, said.

“The growth of enterprise spending on information security in India will continue to grow to reach over $2 billion in 2020,” said Prateek Bhajanka, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Security services will attract the most spending from CISOs and security leaders in 2019 as local organisations emphasise on threat detection, compliance and security hygiene. In 2019, security services will represent 51.5 per cent of the total enterprise information security spending in India.

“Local CISOs and security leaders are investing in advanced threat detection programmes and capabilities such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) and user and entity behaviour analytics (UEBA) to help detect attacks and breaches in their IT infrastructure,” Bhajanka said.

Cloud Security

Enterprise spending on cloud security is expected to total $4 million in 2019, an increase of 300 per cent from 2018.

“The Personal Data Protection bill, which is likely to be accepted by the Indian parliament in 2019, and the government’s initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Smart City’ are increasing net-new adopters of cloud,” said Rustam Malik, principal research analyst at Gartner.

“In addition, Indian organisations are increasingly using cloud-specific security tools such as Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solutions for threat prevention, data loss prevention and compliance requirements, which is fuelling the triple-digit growth of cloud security in India,” Malik added.

In 2019, integrated risk management solutions will be the second fastest growing segment, with a 23.1 per cent year-over-year rise.

“Online payments have risen since demonetisation in 2016 and led to an increase in investments toward IT infrastructure security,” Bhajanka said, adding, the move to digital business is also forcing CISOs to increase spending to manage risks arising from cyber-attacks and non-compliance.