Spending on cybersecurity and risk management tech to hit $150 billion in 2021

Global spending on information security and risk management technology will reach $150.4 billion this year — a growth of 12.4%.

This is according to recent research from Gartner, which also found that risk management spending grew 6.4% in 2020.

Gartner managing research vice president Lawrence Pingree says the robust growth rate is indicative of heightened demand for remote working and cloud technologies.

"Organisations continue to grapple with the security and regulatory demands of public cloud and software as a service," says Pingree.

"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 CIOs regarding potential new spending, the Gartner 2021 CIO Agenda Survey found, with 61% of the more than 2,000 CIOs surveyed increasing investment in cybersecurity this year.

Security services including consulting, hardware support, implementation and outsourced services represent the largest category of spending in 2021, at almost $72.5 billion worldwide.

The smallest but fastest-growing market segment is cloud security, particularly cloud access security brokers (CASB).

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

"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.

Integrated risk management (IRM) technology is also seeing robust double-digit growth resulting from risks highlighted during the global pandemic crisis, Gartner says.

"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," says Gartner senior research director John A. Wheeler.

Gartner's research comes a month after releasing a report detailing the top security and risk management trends for 2021.

Some of the critical challenges facing security and risk leaders in 2021 include the complex geopolitical situation and increasing global regulations, the migration of workspaces and workloads off traditional networks, an explosion in endpoint diversity and locations and a shifting attack environment, in particular, the challenges of ransomware and business email compromise.

Gartner research vice president for APAC Peter Firstbrook said at the time that these trends are a response to persistent global challenges that all organisations are experiencing.

"The first challenge is a skills gap," he says. "80% of organisations tell us they have a hard time finding and hiring security professionals and 71% say it's impacting their ability to deliver security projects within their organisations.