Security spending to hit $96 B globally in 2018: Gartner

Slowly becoming aware of emerging cyber threats, organisations worldwide will spend $96.3 billion on security in 2018 — an increase of 8 percent from 2017, Gartner forecast on Thursday.

More than 60 percent of organisations globally will invest in multiple data security tools by 2020 — up from 35 percent today — it added.

"Overall, a large portion of security spending is driven by an organisation's reaction toward security breaches as more high profile cyber attacks and data breaches affect organisations worldwide," said Ruggero Contu, Research Director at Gartner.

"Cyber attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya, and most recently the Equifax breach, have a direct effect on security spend, because these types of attacks last up to three years," he added.

Regulatory compliance and data privacy have been stimulating spending on security during the past three years, in the US and most recently in Europe around the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force on May 28 2018, as well as in China with the Cybersecurity Law that came into effect in June 2016.

Skills shortages, technical complexity and the threat landscape will continue to drive the move to automation and outsourcing.

"Skill sets are scarce and, therefore, remain at a premium, leading organisations to seek external help from security consultants, managed security service providers and outsourcers," said Contu.

"In 2018, spending on security outsourcing services will total $18.5 billion, an 11 percent increase from 2017. The IT outsourcing segment is the second-largest security spending segment after consulting," he added.

Gartner predicts that by 2019, total enterprise spending on security outsourcing services will be 75 percent of the spending on security software and hardware products, up from 63 percent in 2016.