Beancounters at Canalys have added up some numbers and worked out that that hosted security offerings are growing at a much faster rate than traditional hardware and software sales
A new report says that demand for Security as a Service continues to increase with that model of delivering applications to customers gaining more ground in the first quarter and solutions for public cloud and as a Service increased by 46 percent year-on-year.
The cloud and managed services approach now command 17.6 percent of the security market, a climb from 13.8 percent.
Traditional hardware and software dominate the security industry, with three-quarters of the market, but the growth rate, at eight percent is much slower than the hosted alternatives.
Canalys principal analyst Matthew Ball said the last 18 months had seen a huge effort by vendors to step up the support for managed service providers and those specialising in security as a service. It would be a challenge to find a vendor or distributor that does not have an MSSP programme.
“Investment in cybersecurity shows no sign of slowing down as it remains a priority for all organisations. The security industry will be immune to the increasingly challenging macro-economic and political environment”, he said.
“Recent high-profile ransomware attacks have resulted in organisations paying large sums to regain access to critical IT systems and data. Strengthening security strategies across devices, infrastructure, perimeters and applications will continue to be critical. Increasing employee training and gaining more comprehensive cybersecurity insurance will also be important to counter these threats”, Ball said.
In terms of vendor rankings, the top five globally are Cisco, Palo Alto, Symantec, Check Point and Fortinet.
