Global IT security spending to exceed $124 b in 2019

The global spending on information security products and services will cross the $114-billion mark in 2018, a growth of 12.4 per cent over last year. Research firm Gartner has forecast that the spending will grow 8.7 per cent to $124 billion in 2019.

“Persisting skill shortages and regulatory changes such as the EU’s Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are driving growth in the security services market,” Siddharth Deshpande, Research Director, Gartner, said.

Highly publicised data breaches, like the recent attack on SingHealth that compromised personal health records of 1.5 million patients in Singapore, reinforce the need to view sensitive data and IT systems as a critical infrastructure, he said. “Security and risk management has to be a critical part of any digital business initiative,” he said.

The research firm estimates that privacy concerns will drive at least 10 per cent of market demand for security services in 2019.

Key market drivers

Deshpande said at least 30 per cent of organisations will spend on GDPR related consulting and implementation services next year.

“Organisations are continuing their journey towards compliance with the GDPR that has been in effect since May 25. Implementing, assessing and auditing the business processes related to the EU regulation are expected to be the core focus of security service spending for EU-based organisations,” Deshpande said.

Risk management and privacy concerns within digital transformation initiatives will drive additional security services spending for more than 40 per cent of organisations in the next two years.

Services (subscription and managed) will represent at least 50 per cent of security software delivery by 2020. Security-as-a-Service is on the way to surpassing on-premises deployments, and hybrid deployments are enticing buyers.

“On-premises deployments are the most popular, but cloud-delivered security is becoming the preferred delivery model for number of technologies,” Deshpande said in a security solutions market review.