Global Cybersecurity Spending to Soar 10% in 2021

The worldwide cybersecurity market is set to grow by up to 10% this year to top $60bn, as the global economy slowly recovers from the pandemic, according to Canalys.

The analyst firm clarified that double-digit growth from $54.7bn in 2020 would be its best-case scenario. However, even in the worst case, cybersecurity spending would reach 6.6%, it predicted.

That would factor in a deeper-than-anticipated economic impact from lockdowns, although the security market has proven to be remarkably resilient thus far to the pandemic-induced global economic crisis, Canalys said.

That said, SMB spending was hit hard last year, along with certain sectors like hospitality, retail and transport.

However, while spending is set to soar, so are data breaches and ransomware attacks. Human error continues to be a major factor, via misconfigurations of cloud infrastructure and susceptibility to phishing attacks, the analyst argued.

Mass remote working and learning in 2021 and the ongoing pressure placed on healthcare services will continue to expose these organizations to threats, it said.

Chief analyst, Matthew Ball, claimed the recent SolarWinds attacks highlight the continued unpredictability of the threat landscape. Amidst this volatile backdrop, organizations will need to adopt multi-layered approaches combining staff awareness training, data protection and threat detection and response, he said.

“Cybersecurity professional services engagements in response to this latest issue will be one of many factors contributing to sustained investment this year, especially in newer solutions to mitigate emerging threats,” Ball noted. “Growth in add-on subscriptions providing new features, products to secure the cloud and delivered from the cloud, and upgrades to existing solutions will be key drivers for expansion.”

The Canalys report covered shipments of endpoint security, network security, web and email security, data security, vulnerability and security analytics, and identity access management (IAM).

Web and email security (12.5%) will grow the most in 2021 with vulnerability and security analytics (11%) not far behind. Data security (6.6%) and network security (8%) are set to bring up the rear in terms of growth.