Worldwide spending on information security will reach US$75.4 billion in 2015, an increase of 4.7 percent over 2014.
According to the latest forecast from Gartner, the increase in spending is being driven by government initiatives, increased legislation and high-profile data breaches.
Going forward, security testing, IT outsourcing, and identity and access management present the biggest growth opportunities for technology providers.
Gartner reports that spending in areas such as endpoint protection platforms and consumer security software is starting to see commoditisation, leading to a downgrade in the forecast for these segments in 2015.
While the visibility and growing awareness of the impact of security threats keeps attention on security, the bulk of the security software market is composed of mature technology areas where the penetration rate is already high.
“Interest in security technologies is increasingly driven by elements of digital business, particularly cloud, mobile computing and now also the Internet of Things, as well as by the sophisticated and high-impact nature of advanced targeted attacks,” says Elizabeth Kim, Research Analyst, Gartner.
Kim says that this focus is driving investment in emerging offerings, such as endpoint detection and remediation tools, threat intelligence and cloud security tools, such as encryption.
However, strength in these emerging segments cannot compensate for the downgrade of the larger mature segments being commoditised.
The analyst firm reports that increased legislation continues to be a driver for security spending in some countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and South Africa.
Other trends in the information security market behind Gartner's latest forecast include:
Price increases of as much as 20 percent will drive organisations to forgo security purchasing in 2015, especially in Europe.
As most products in security originate from the U.S., its dollar appreciation will trigger significant price changes in the conversion from local currencies to U.S. dollars.
Pricing went up as much as 20 percent for most security products in the European region, for example.