Global Cybersecurity expenditure estimated to surpass $86.4 Billion in 2017

Yeah, that’s how serious things are. Global cyber security expenditure is expected to grow to $86 Billion in this year, according to a report by Gartner. The projection showed a 7% increase in the worldwide spending on IT security products and services, suggesting opportunities for security startups to tap into rising demand for specialist b2b services.

“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 statement.

According to the analysis, within the infrastructure protection segment, fast growth is projected in the security testing market, though it notes this is coming from a small base. The factors the report points to that are driving spending are continued data breaches and growing demand for app security testing.

The report also said that the fastest growing segment will be security services and IT outsourcing, consulting and implementation services in specific. In contrast, the Analysts expect hardware support services to see growth slowing due to the adoption of technologies such as virtual appliances, public cloud and SaaS editions of security solutions.

Gartner is also expecting a big rise in the bundling of security services and broader IT outsourcing (ITO) projects with managed security service (MSS) contracts in the coming years. It is estimated a jump from 20 per cent currently to 40 per cent by 2020.

“As ITO providers and security consulting firms improve the maturity of the MSS they offer, customers will have a much broader range of bundling and service packaging options through which to consume MSS offerings. The large contract sizes associated with ITO and security outsourcing deals will drive significant growth for the MSS market through 2020,” the report notes.