• by Ray Schultz , August 18, 2017

Spending on information security will hit $86.4 billion this year, a 7% hike over the prior year. And it will reach $93 billion in 2018, according to a forecast by Gartner Inc.

One factor driving this expansion is anxiety about the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The GDPR, which will take effect next May, has created an “overall panic and unease” in European companies, Gartner notes.  

Gartner expects the GDPR to drive 65% of all data loss prevention buying decisions through next year.

Also contributing to the growth is rising awareness among companies about the business impact of security incidents, according to Gartner executives.

As in the past, the security services segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate. This includes IT outsourcing, consulting and implementation services.

But the hardware support sector will see slower growth due to increasing use of virtual appliances, public cloud and SaaS, Gartner notes.

Gartner also predicts rapid growth for the infrastructure protection segment, particularly in the  areas of IT outsourcing, consulting and implementation services.

"Rising awareness among CEOs and boards of directors about the business impact of security incidents and an evolving regulatory landscape have led to continued spending on security products and services," states Sid Deshpande, principal research analyst at Gartner.

But Deshpande cautions that “improving security is not just about spending on new technologies.”

Instead, companies must also address “basic security and risk related hygiene elements like threat centric vulnerability management, centralized log management, internal network segmentation, backups and system hardening.”

Gartner also found that:

40% of all managed security service contracts by 2021 will be bundled with other security services and broader IT outsourcing, compared with 20% today.

Over 80% of large businesses in China by 2021 will use network security equipment from a local vendor.