Cybersecurity spending will grow by 5.6% year-on-year in 2020, despite the financial problems that all economies face right now. In fact, the entire cybersecurity market will likely grow by 2.5% this year, according to a new report from Canalys.
Keeping cybersecurity a priority isn’t optional for companies in 2020, especially if we consider that cyberattacks are on the rise and criminals want to take advantage of the pandemic.
As companies shifted strategies and allowed people to work from home, their online exposure and cybersecurity risk increased, pushing them to invest more, which was underlined by a 5.6% increase in funding despite the economic downturn.
While any kind of growth is usually good, the report also underlines that not all cybersecurity verticals will experience the trends, with at least one area registering fewer investments. The best-case scenario shows an 8.5% increase for endpoint security, 10.3% for web and email security, 8.5% for data security, and 10% for vulnerability and security analytics. Unfortunately, network security will at best register a 0.9% decrease in funding; a worst-case scenario shows a possible 4.7% drop in funding for the same technology.
“2020 cybersecurity growth rates will vary by technology segment. Endpoint security will see high growth rates, as remote working practices are extended, though momentum will slow after strong investment in Q1, especially in SMB customer segments,” states the
report. “Network security will remain the largest segment, at 36% of spending. But the reprioritization of budgets will defocus spending on traditional appliance-based perimeter defenses. This will lead to negative growth rates.”
The pandemic will also prompt many companies to accelerate cloud migration, which is to be expected since the latest forecasts reveal that, for Western Europe, for example, the proportion of workers regularly working from home will grow from 12% pre-COVID-19 to 28% in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.
The report also underscores that even under the worst-case scenarios, for any verticals, the entire market is likely to expand. Unfortunately, that increase will depend largely on how the pandemic progresses.
