With the growing fear of becoming the next victim of a cyberattack, companies are taking major precautions and upping their cybersecurity. Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) recently forecasted that worldwide spending for cybersecurity hardware, software, and services will surpass $170 billion in 2020.
“Today’s security climate is such that enterprises fear becoming victims of the next major cyberattack or cyber extortion,” said Sean Pike, vice president of Security Products. “As a result, security has become heavily scrutinized by boards of directors demanding that security budgets are used wisely and solutions operation at peak efficiency.”
In 2015, worldwide spending on information security reached a record $75 billion, an increase of 4.7% over 2014. The cybersecurity market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% between 2016 and 2020, over double the rate between 2014 and 2015.
The Costs of Cyberattacks
The sharp increase in cybersecurity spending should come as no surprise given the astronomical costs of cyberattacks. In 2015, the costs of cyberattacks surpassed $400 billion, which includes direct damage plus post-attack disruption to business operations. From 2013 to 2015, the costs of cyberattacks quadrupled, and it is estimated that these costs will quadruple again between 2016 and 2019. Juniper Research recently predicted that the rapid digitization of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 TRILLION globally by 2019.
Where is the Money Going?
According to IDC, four industries will account for 37% of worldwide cybersecurity spending: banking, discrete manufacturing, the federal government and process manufacturing. Healthcare, telecommunications, utilities, state and local government, and securities and investment services will grow 9% annually over the next five years. One of the fastest-growing segments of the security products market will be user behavior analytics software with a compound annual growth rate of 12.2%.
“The pace and threat of security attacks is increasing every year, especially across compliance-driven industries like healthcare, telecom, government and financial services,” said Eileen Smith, program director at Customer Insights and Analysis.
A new cybercrime wave is also driving the Internet of Things (IoT) spending. The IoT security market is expected to grow from $6.89 billion to nearly $29 billion by 2020. That’s a compound annual growth rate of nearly 55% for the global IoT security market between 2016 and 2020.
What Does the Future Hold?
A massive cybersecurity market is emerging around protecting cars from being hacked. Test driving a car used to be all about the ride. However, today’s prospective buyers are looking more at the technology that cars have installed. Essentially, cars have become IoT devices. Where there are computers, there will be hackers. In the summer of 2015, hackers were able to target Jeep Cherokees and remotely take control of thousands of the vehicles and do anything from play with the windshield wipers to cutting off the transmission. With the emergence of self-driving cars, this market will certainly grow in the years to come.
How can WatchPoint help you?
2016 has been designated as the ‘year of ransomware’ as it has seen an increase of 500% since 2015. In the first quarter of 2016, approximately $210 million was paid to criminals. With more than 4,000 ransomware attacks occurring daily, it is expected that more than $1 billion in ransom will be collected by year’s end.
Prevention is the most effective defense against ransomware, and it is critical to take the necessary precautions to protect your company’s cybersecurity well-being. WatchPoint has a solution to protect you from the prevalent threat of ransomware.
CryptoStopper.io monitors your shared files and detects and isolates the attack the moment ransomware hits your network. An alert is sent to the administrator, and the host is disconnected from the server. While it is important to put as many barriers in place to prevent malware from hitting your network, there is nothing that can keep you 100% safe. Prevention is key, but protection is a must. Check out Cryptostopper.io to see how WatchPoint can protect your business from ransomware.