Information security spending in India to touch $2.08 bn in 2021: Gartner

Enterprises in India are projected to increase expenditure on information security and risk management to $2.08 billion in 2021, a report from research firm Gartner showed.

According to firm’s forecast, the total spending on enterprise information security, which includes moving to cloud-delivered security capabilities, and deploying threat detection and response programmes, will see a growth of 9.5% from 2020.  

Last year, the report said, the spending in this area grew by just 3.2% to $1.9 billion due to the pandemic. But, as things have started falling into place now, the cumulative increase is on the way.

“While security leaders had to cut down on their security spending in 2020 because of IT budget cuts, in 2021, this trend is reversing,” Prateek Bhajanka, senior principal research analyst at Gartner, said, commenting on the report that was presented at the ongoing Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, India.

“A secure digital environment is now foundational to organisations’ growth and in preparation to another crisis that may arise. Security leaders are ready to reinvest in cybersecurity with a renewed and refreshed rigor,” he said.

Cloud security spending to grow 251%

While Gartner projects higher investment across all sub-segments or focus areas of information security and risk management, the total spending on cloud security is expected to see the highest rate of growth in 2021 at 251.1%.  

According to the report, the spending in this area is projected to increase from $9 million in 2020 to $31 million this year, given the need for remote working and cloud adoption.

Security leaders across organisations will invest more in cloud access security brokers (CASB), cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP) as well as other technologies to ensure security whether working from home, office, or off-site, the report said.

“India is at an early stage of cloud adoption and the pandemic only accelerated this shift as organisations moved to the cloud to achieve cost efficiency and business continuity,” Bhajanka said. “In 2020, hyperscalers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, increased their investment in data centers in India, further catalysing Indian organisations’ move to cloud during the pandemic.”

Other than cloud, spending towards integrated risk management will also see a significant increase, growing 27.8% from $96 million in 2020 to $123 million 2021. The spending towards security services and network security equipment, meanwhile, is projected to remain the highest at $988 million and $302 million, respectively.