Information security spending in 2016 will smash previous records. A new report from Gartner Inc., indicates global information security spending in 2016 will reach $81.6 billion. That represents an increase of 7.9% from 2015.
At present, organizations are committing the most funds to consulting and IT outsourcing according to the report. Over the next four years the biggest growth areas are expected to be security testing and data loss prevention.
IT outsourcing will also continue to be a major growth area. There is a serious talent shortage and many firms are struggling to bring in the skilled staff. This leaves them with little choice but to contract out IT security services. That situation is unlikely to change in the near future.
While preventative security technology will continue to see strong growth, many organizations are now investing more heavily in detection and response. Cyberattacks are now viewed as inevitable and traditional preventative strategies are failing to stop attacks from occurring. However, Gartner advises organizations to ensure that funds are committed to both prevention and detection. Spending should ideally be balanced between the two.
Gartner predicts sustained growth in secure web gateways. Current growth of 5%-10% is expected to be maintained through 2020. Secure email gateways and endpoint protection will continue to see growth, although this will continue to be constrained due to commoditization, according to Gartner.
Gartner has also predicted a rise in the price of firewalls. Firewalls are expected to increase in price by around 2-3% per year until the end of 2018. The market is driven by increased demand for high end equipment among cloud providers and other service providers. Many companies are now employing more complex – and expensive – firewalls due to increased bandwidth use and the need to cover an increasing number of devices.
By the end of 2018, 9 out of 10 organizations are expected to use data loss prevention technologies, in part due to increased regulatory compliance. Gartner also predicts that advanced inspection-oriented features will be added to network firewalls by more companies. By 2019, more than half of medium and large organizations are expected incorporate these features into their firewalls.