Information Security Spending Will Exceed $124 Billion in 2019

Worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach more than $114 billion in 2018, an increase of 12.4 percent from last year, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. In 2019, the market is forecast to grow 8.7 percent to $124 billion.

"Security leaders are striving to help their organizations securely use technology platforms to become more competitive and drive growth for the business," said Siddharth Deshpande, research director at Gartner. "Persisting skills shortages and regulatory changes like the EU’s GDPR are driving continued growth in the security services market.

A 2017 Gartner survey revealed that the top three drivers for security spending are (1) security risks; (2) business needs; and (3) industry changes. Privacy concerns are also becoming a key factor. Gartner believes privacy concerns will drive at least 10 percent of market demand for security services through 2019 and will impact a variety of segments, such as identity and access management (IAM), identity governance and administration (IGA) and data loss prevention (DLP).

An increased focus on building detection and response capabilities, privacy regulations such as GDPR, and the need to address digital business risks are the main drivers for global security spending through 2019.

Security Spending by Segment, 2017-2019 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Gartner has identified key trends affecting information security spending in 2018-2019. The analytics firm says that at least 30 percent of organizations will spend on GDPR-related consulting and implementation services through 2019. They also claim that risk management and privacy concerns within digital transformation initiatives will drive additional security service spending through 2020 for more than 40 percent of organizations. Finally, Gartner predicts that services will represent at least 50 percent of security software delivery by 2020.

Security as a service is on the way to surpassing on-premises deployments, and hybrid deployments are enticing buyers. A large portion of respondents to Gartner’s security buying behavior survey said they plan to deploy specific security technologies, such as security information and event management (SIEM), in a hybrid deployment model in the next two years. Managed services represented roughly 24 percent of deployments, on average.