BYOD Spurs Growth of Security Market-Gartner Says

IT research firm Gartner, Inc. says that in 2012, BYOD has fueled the growth of the worldwide security software market by 7.9 percent per year. This year, Gartner predicts the growth to reach 8.7 percent and will be worth $67.2 billion compared to $61.8 billion in 2012. And in four years, Gartner estimates that the global security software market will be worth $86 billion.

Analysts from the IT research firm announced their forecast during Gartner's Security and Risk Management Summit on June 10-13, 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland.

"With security being one of the top IT concern areas, the prospect of strong continued growth is assured," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. "The consistent increases in the complexity and volume of targeted attacks, coupled with the necessity of companies to address regulatory or compliance-related issues continue to support healthy security market growth."

Gartner analysts describe three major trends-mobile security, big data, and advanced targeted attacks-that will influence the future of the security software market.

Analysts also claim that BYOD will have an extensive impact on the global security software industry. Opportunities for technology service providers (TSPs) will be created by the changes made in the way security handles BYOD. First, in the move from device to app/data security, some security TSPs may be able to gain control of endpoint protection budgets. Second, buying centers may add security beyond the traditional IT centers, since certain BYOD initiatives are geared toward the productivity gains of one or two apps. And third, knowing the types of devices and user computing behavior is "just as important as who they are. An opportunity exists for those able to determine that context, and provide it for other points of influence, such as the network or applications."

Gartner says that over the next five years, the amount of data needed by information security to effectively identify the presence of advanced attacks and to simultaneously support new business programs will grow quickly. And this rapid growth will usher new difficulties in seeking patterns of potential risk across a range of data sources. Gartner says that big data is not the goal. What is imperative is to bring in "risk-prioritized actionable insight."

"To support the growing need for security analytics, changes in information security people, technologies, integration methods and processes will be required, including security data warehousing and analytics capabilities, and an emerging role for security data analysts within leading-edge enterprise information security organizations," said Eric Ahlm, research director at Gartner. (KOM) Link. Link.