Worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach more than $114 billion in 2018, an increase of 12.4 percent from last year, according to the latest forecast from Gartner, Inc. In 2019, the market is forecast to grow 8.7 percent to $124 billion.
“Security leaders are striving to help their organizations securely use technology platforms to become more competitive and drive growth for the business,” said Siddharth Deshpande, Research Director at Gartner. “Persisting skills shortages and regulatory changes like the EU’s Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are driving continued growth in the security services market”, he added.
A 2017 Gartner survey revealed that the top three drivers for security spending are (1) security risks; (2) business needs; and (3) industry changes. Privacy concerns are also becoming a key factor. Gartner believes privacy concerns will drive at least 10 percent of market demand for security services through 2019 and will impact a variety of segments, such as identity and access management (IAM), identity governance and administration (IGA) and data loss prevention (DLP).
Worldwide Security Spending by Segment, 2017-2019 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| Market Segment | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| Application Security | 2,434 | 2,742 | 3,003 |
| Cloud Security | 185 | 304 | 459 |
| Data Security | 2,563 | 3,063 | 3,524 |
| Identity Access Management | 8,823 | 9,768 | 10,578 |
| Infrastructure Protection | 12,583 | 14,106 | 15,337 |
| Integrated Risk Management | 3,949 | 4,347 | 4,712 |
| Network Security Equipment | 10,911 | 12,427 | 13,321 |
| Other Information Security Software | 1,832 | 2,079 | 2,285 |
| Security Services | 52,315 | 58,920 | 64,237 |
| Consumer Security Software | 5,948 | 6,395 | 6,661 |
| Total | 101,544 | 114,152 | 124,116 |
Source: Gartner (August 2018)
Risk management and privacy concerns within digital transformation initiatives will drive additional security service spending through 2020 for more than 40 percent of organizations.
Consulting and implementation service providers have retooled their service offerings over the past several years to support customers on their digital transformation journey. Security is a key factor in the uptake of that transformation process for regulated data, critical operations and intellectual property protection spanning public cloud, SaaS and the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
