Top Security Trends Driving Enterprise Spend Through 2018

The convergence of cloud computing, mobile technology and social activity is forcing enterprise businesses to increase their investments in information security services and data protection, according to data released at Gartner’s Security and Risk Management Summit, held last week in Sydney, Australia.

The research firm revealed that worldwide spending on information security will climb 7.9 percent in 2014 to $71.1 billion, and total information security spending is forecasted to increase to $76.9 billion by 2015.

Gartner research director Lawrence Pingree explained that the influx of new technologies onto business networks is leading to increased vulnerabilities for cyber criminals to exploit.

“It is also creating new opportunities to improve effectiveness, particularly as a result of better understanding security threats by using contextual information and other security intelligence,” Pingree stated in a release.

Here are some more salient security trends for the next four years:

• Security moves to the cloud: As the use of cloud as a delivery model continues to increase, so does the type of managed services deployed through a cloud-based platform. By 2015, Gartner forecasts that approximately 10 percent of enterprise security product capabilities will be offered via a cloud service.
• Bundled protection: By 2015, Gartner expects that 30 percent of infrastructure protection products will be purchased as part of new security suite offerings, including new security controls, data loss prevention software, mobile device management, vulnerability assessment tools, hosted archiving and encryption for secure e-mail.
• Managed security service adoption to spike: Enterprise businesses are quickly realizing that they are ill-prepared to deal with data breaches and cyber-attacks. To help turn the tide, they are outsourcing IT security to dedicated managed security service vendors to help implement preventative measures, boost incident response and monitor and regulate mobile devices. By 2018, Gartner expects more than half of organizations to use third party security firms to help manage their network infrastructure.
• Mobile security to become more commonplace: As consumers become increasingly dependent on mobile devices for information gathering, social interaction and entertainment, cyber threats in the form of mobile malware and viruses will become a bigger threat. Businesses will need to invest in antivirus services on their networks to secure against threats that can enter a “bring your own device” environment. Analysts predict that this trend won’t reach critical mass until 2017.

While some of these forecasted trends are many years out, enterprise businesses shouldn’t wait to secure their cloud and network environments. Visit Verizon Enterprise Solution’s Security products site today to learn about the latest security services and solutions available to protect your business.