Ongoing investment in cybersecurity solutions continues to grow. According to the latest worldwide market study by Canalys, cybersecurity solutions for public cloud and 'as a service' accelerated in the first quarter of 2019. Those deployment models collectively grew 46 percent year-on-year.

These type of solutions accounted for 17.6 percent of the total cybersecurity market value — that's up from 13.8 percent in the same period a year ago. Virtual security appliances and agent solutions also grew significantly, up by 18.2 percent on an annual basis.

Cybersecurity solutions market development

Traditional security hardware and software deployments still dominate, representing almost 75 percent of the total market. Both deployment models continued to grow but at a slower rate of just over 8 percent. This growth highlights the ongoing transition in cybersecurity solutions, as organisations look to protect more data assets and workloads located in the public cloud.

Moreover, IT vendors have introduced new ways of doing business with channels and enterprise customers in terms of purchasing, consumption and servicing — as well as helping simplify security operations within increasingly complex IT environments.

The worldwide cybersecurity market reached $9.7 billion in terms of shipments in the latest quarter — that's up 14.2 percent from $8.5 billion in Q1 2018.

 

 

According to the Canalys assessment, enterprise IT investment in cybersecurity shows no sign of slowing down. "The security industry will be immune to the increasingly challenging macro-economic and political environment," said Matthew Ball, principal analyst at Canalys.

There's a troubling trend that has raised awareness about the ultimate cost of an inadequate defense to counter online criminal activity. Recent high-profile ransomware attacks have resulted in some organisations paying large sums to regain access to critical IT systems and their related 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.

As new cyber threats appear in the online arena, more security software startups will likely emerge, adding to an already crowded market. Product differentiation will be key, but also offering customers a choice of deployment models and simplified licensing will be vital.

Outlook for cybersecurity solutions growth

The challenge for enterprise organisations in both the public and private sectors is to maintain pace with the evolving and diverse range of online security threats. Many think they're too small or not high-profile enough to be targeted, but online hackers will seek to exploit any IT vulnerabilities.

This threat landscape is creating opportunities for IT channel partners to expand their capabilities to provide more holistic cybersecurity offerings to assess, recommend, deploy, integrate and manage multi-vendor solutions and services incorporating several deployment models.

Overall, the channel represented 92.3 percent of the cybersecurity solutions shipment value in the first quarter of 2019.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.