A new study claims that medium-sized businesses are prioritising IT security in their budgets and will be the biggest spenders over the coming years.
The figures released by research analysts Canalys show the worldwide market for IT security is to increase at an annual rate of 7 per cent through to 2017, to be worth $30.1 billion.
It claims that IT security remains a priority and investment is less affected by economic conditions than other areas of the IT sector.
The biggest growth segment over the next five years was identified as medium-sized businesses – those with between 100 and 499 employees. Their spending was forecast to grow 7.3 per cent annually, to reach $8.5 billion in 2017.
Medium-sized businesses are predicted to increase spending on network security by 7.7 per cent through to 2017, while outlay on security management and content security is forecast to increase by 7.6 per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively.
Canalys analyst Nushin Vaiani said: “Medium-sized businesses are prioritising more of their IT budgets and resources to ensure their businesses are compliant with various data protection regulations. They also want to give their customers reassurance about the services they provide.”
A recent study from Oracle and CSO Custom Solutions Group found that less than one third of typical IT security budget resources are allocated to protecting core infrastructure, such as databases and applications.
This is despite most enterprises surveyed admitting a database breach would be the most severe security incident, as they contain the most valuable information, such as intellectual property and sensitive customer, employee and corporate data.
