Aus cybersecurity spend to reach $5.1bn

The information security and risk management technology and services spend in Australia is set to increase by 7.3% to reach AU$5.1 billion in 2021, according to Gartner.

Security services, which includes consulting, hardware support, implementation and outsourced services, is the largest category at AU$3.2 billion. The smallest but fastest growing market segment is cloud security, expected to increase by 38% from last year to AU$20 million.

The strong growth rate reflects continuing demand for remote worker technologies and cloud security, according to Gartner analysts.

Lawrence Pingree, managing research vice president at Gartner, said there are early market signals of growing automation and further adoption of machine learning technologies in support of AI security. “To combat attacks, organisations will extend and standardise threat detection and response activities.”

This year, the worldwide spending on information security and risk management technology and services is forecast to grow 12.4% to reach $150.4 billion.

In the Gartner 2021 CIO Agenda Survey, cybersecurity was the top priority for new spending, with 61% of the more than 2000 CIOs surveyed increasing investment in cyber/information security this year.

With the growing popularity of non-PC devices for interacting with core business processes, CASB is becoming a popular risk-mitigating choice for cloud-using organisations. “CASBs also enable safer interaction between SaaS applications and unmanaged devices.”

Integrated risk management (IRM) technology is also seeing robust double-digit growth resulting from risks highlighted during the global pandemic crisis. “Areas of significant risk driving near-term demand include the advent of new digital products and services and the related health and safety uses, as well as third-party risks such as customer data breaches or supply chain attacks,” said John A Wheeler, senior research director at Gartner.

Table 1: Information security and risk management end user spending by segment, 2020–2021 (Millions of US dollars)

Market segment	2020	2021	Growth (%)
Application security	3,333	3,738	12.2
Cloud security	595	841	41.2
Data security	2,981	3,505	17.5
Identity access management	12,036	13,917	15.6
Infrastructure protection	20,462	23,903	16.8
Integrated risk management	4,859	5,473	12.6
Network security equipment	15,626	17,020	8.9
Other information security software	2,306	2,527	9.6
Security services	65,070	72,497	11.4
Consumer security software	6,507	6,990	7.4
Total	133,776	150,409	12.4

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Gorodenkoff