Gartner: Global cybersecurity spending to hit $150bn this year

Researcher forecasts a 12.4 percent spending growth in 2021 driven by cloud

Worldwide spending on information security and risk management technology and services is forecast to grow 12.4 per cent this year, according to Gartner.

The independent researcher predicts that global spending in the sector, which grew 6.4 percent last year, will hit $150.4bn due considerably to the demand for remote worker technologies and cloud security.

"Organisations continue to grapple with the security and regulatory demands of public cloud and software as a service," managing research vice president at Gartner, Lawrence Pingree, said.

"Looking ahead, we're seeing 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."

Cybersecurity was the top priority for new spending in the Gartner 2021 CIO Agenda Survey, with 61 per cent of the more than 2,000 CIOs surveyed increasing investment in cyber and information security this year.

Security services including consulting, hardware support, implementation and outsourced services represent the largest category of spending in 2021 at almost $72.5bn worldwide, while the smallest market, cloud security, is also predicted to be the fastest growing with 41.2 per cent growth.

This is due somewhat to demand for cloud access security brokers (CASBs), which Pingree says is down to the use of a wider range of devices.

"The pace of client inquiry indicates that CASB is a popular choice for cloud-using organisations," he added.

"This is due to the growing popularity of using non-PC devices for interacting with core business processes, which creates security risks that can be mitigated effectively with a CASB. CASBs also enable safer interaction between SaaS applications and unmanaged devices."