Security spending is predicted to grow from $73.7bn in 2016 to $101.6bn in 2020, according to analysts.
This compound annual growth rate of 8.3 per cent, more than twice the rate of overall IT spending growth, will be increased security spending in healthcare as well as continued strong demand in banking and government.
The largest category of investment will be security-related services, which will account for nearly 45 per cent of all security spending worldwide in 2016. Much of this comes from investment in managed security services. Other hot spots include unified threat management systems, identity and access management software and user behaviour analytics software, as explained in a statement and graphics from IDC here .
"The pace and threat of security attacks is increasing every year, especially across compliance-driven industries like healthcare, telecom, government and financial services," said Eileen Smith, a program director at IDC.
“In addition to the traditional challenges of risk and regulatory compliance, digital transformation and the use of 3rd Platform technologies are putting even more pressure on organizations across all industries to develop and execute on a new generation of security measures."
Increased hacking and malware threats are driving security spending in technologies that have a mixed record of actually preventing damage, prompting a rethink from at least some in the industry.
Ilia Kolochenko, from web security firm High-Tech Bridge, commented: “Something is wrong here: we cannot continuously increase our cybersecurity budget and get instantly and more frequently hacked in parallel."
Comprehensive risk assessment or reassessment ought to proceed spending on new technologies, according to Kolochenko.