You must have heard about increasing cyber threats over the various mediums and channels over the Internet. But what is Cyber security? To understand cybersecurity first thing to understand is what is the threat against which we want security? Cyber threats in simple words seek to steal or damage the integrity of data and crux destroy the safe digital life of users. Cyber security refers to safeguarding the systems connected over the internet and these not only include software and data but also hardware and aim to secure the data centres and other digital systems.
The covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world around us in ways more than we could have ever imagined. One of the most visible impacts is the increased activity over the internet and with most of the activities going online that has only reinforced the entire online world. And as the activities went online, so the threat of cyber frauds and other related activities increased too. Not only the quantum of cyberattacks have increased but there has been a radical change in cyberattacks too, they are becoming more and more complex and sophisticated.
There are three chief aspects of cybersecurity, the first being assessment – this means that there needs to be a thorough analysis of areas of threat and vulnerabilities because only when you know the areas of concern, other protection measures can be designed and initiated. The second aspect is protection – now the areas of potential concerns have been identified so the protection measures can be designed, calibrated and put in practice and the final aspect of cybersecurity is remediation – despite all the precautions you have taken if some mishappenings take place then what systems are there in place to address them.
In this blog, we will discuss the size of the cybersecurity market in monetary terms and we will also look at an in-depth analysis of various sectors of cybersecurity and how it has been performing.
Size of market
In 2022, the market size of cyber security is expected to reach approximately USD 150 billion. As the size of the digital market is increasing, so is the size of the cybersecurity market accompanying it and it is expected that the market is bound to see a great future ahead and there is always the catching up game between the threats and the protection measures in place. It is anticipated that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) that the cybersecurity market is bound to see is in the range of 13-15%. To understand what this growth rate means, it is critical to understand and see the past few years and the market share of the cybersecurity world.
The size of the information security technology market in the year 2019 was approximately 120 billion USD. In 2020, it rose to 127 billion USD and it was the year as we know covid-19 pandemic hit and most of the activities went online therefore the need for cybersecurity-related protection measures also increased and as expected for the year 2021, it went up to 132 billion USD. As we discussed in the previous section, a CAGR of over 13% over a base market of more than 100 billion USD is a great deal!
Cloud Security
As the digital footprints are increasing so the quest for data also increased and both these factors led to an increasing need for data storage and the answer to desire came in the form of cloud storage. Cloud adoption has emerged as an ally for organisations to preserve business continuity as remote work and online collaboration became more prevalent during the coronavirus outbreak.
Even though worldwide corporations had been shifting to the cloud before the crisis, the pandemic accelerated the process. Rapid cloud migration, on the other hand, is expected to present a slew of new security dangers and concerns. Misconfigured cloud storage, less visibility and management, incomplete data erasure, and susceptible cloud apps are all examples of cloud-based security vulnerabilities that will continue to affect enterprises in the future.
The annual spending on cloud storage related security stood at around 420 million USD and to understand how well the sector is increasing, for the year 2020 this spending went up to 600 million USD. And many experts believe that it is only the beginning of the growth and is set to see a huge surge in spending by companies also over the Globe.
Application Security
When it came to software development, security was once an afterthought. It’s becoming a more pressing issue for all aspects of application development, from planning through deployment and beyond.
The number of programmes that are developed, deployed, utilised, and patched across networks is continually increasing. As a result, application security strategies must now deal with a wider range of risks. Improving security procedures throughout the software development lifecycle and the application lifetime are examples of security measures. Malicious actors should be prevented from gaining unauthorised access to systems, applications, or data through all app sec operations. Application security’s ultimate purpose is to prevent intruders from gaining access to, altering, or destroying important or proprietary data.
When comes to annual spending on application security by companies and individuals all over the world is much more than what we saw in the cloud sector. For the year 2019, annual spending stood at roughly 3000 million USD and for the year 2020, it went up by more than 300 million USD and the overall spending was more than 3300 million USD
Data Security
Data security means the practice of securing and protecting personal and critical data from cyberattacks and other forms of threats.
A variety of techniques is utilised by professionals to ensure the integrity and safety of data like data encryption, cryptographic techniques, access control, standard operating procures fixation, key management and a range of other sectors. Considering the importance of data in today’s world with technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning relying heavily upon the data and the potential it carries to build a digital profile of someone, therefore, the need for the protection of data can not be stressed enough and the annual spending speaks for this too.
In the year 2019, the reported annual spending on security measures related to data stood at 2600 million USD and within one year, the year pandemic hit us, when more data was generated, experts believe, the spending to preserve the integrity of data rose by more than 400 million USD within a year and went up to approximately 3000 million USD.
Security Services
Security services are one of the largest sectors in which the annual spending by users and companies all over the Globe. But what do security services comprise? There is a range of aspects that are covered by security services. We will just name three to stress their importance of them.
The first is an authority that can take care of the overall infrastructure related to data security and it is generally called the chief security officer. With outsourcing, this is also called a virtual chief security officer (vCISO). The virtual chief information security officer is a security professional who leverages their years of cybersecurity and industry knowledge to assist firms in establishing and implementing their information security programme. At a high level, vCISOs assist in the development of the organization’s security strategy, with some also assisting in the execution. Internal security personnel may still exist, reporting to or collaborating with the vCISO and his or her team to implement a successful security programme. The vCISO is also required to be able to convey the condition of information security to an organization’s board of directors, executive team, auditors, or regulators.
The second service is cyber security consulting. A cybersecurity consultant does not work for a single firm, but rather is hired by a customer to assess the company’s cybersecurity measures and then create and implement a more effective defence. Information security consultants, computer security consultants, database security consultants, and network security consultants are some of the names given to these professionals. Regardless of their title, they utilise their extensive expertise and years of experience to advise, coach, train and assist their clients in implementing improved security measures.
The third chief service is Network security monitoring. The conventional network boundary is blurring as the modern workplace becomes increasingly cloud-focused and digitalized. Cyber attacks are constantly changing to take advantage of new weaknesses that are discovered regularly. While preventative protection equipment can detect known signature-based dangers, cyber security threat monitoring is necessary to detect increasingly complex threats that elude these safeguards. The practice of detecting cyber threats and data breaches is referred to as cyber security threat monitoring. IT infrastructure monitoring is an important aspect of cyber risk management because it allows companies to detect and respond to cyber-attacks early on before they cause damage and disruption.
The lion’s share of annual spending in the security services sector was around 62,000 million USD in 2019 and 2020 it rose to around 65,000 million USD.
As we saw in the blog, the cyber security sector is set to see an increase in both annual spending and market share. So stay tuned and check out the growth of the cyber security sector in years to come.
