Information security spending in Australia will exceed $2 billion next year, according to a Gartner forecast released today.
Gartner predicted that security spending would climb 13.5 per cent this year to $1.9 billion. In 2015, it will increase another 8.8 per cent to reach nearly $2.1 billion, the analyst firm said.
By comparison, Gartner expects worldwide spending to reach $76.3 billion in 2014, an increase of 7.9 per cent over the previous year. Gartner predicted it would grow an additional 8.2 per cent in 2015 to reach nearly $82.7 billion.
An increase in advanced targeted attacks in 2013 has increased awareness among organisations that historically have treated security as an IT function and cost centre, Gartner found.
Broader data privacy legislation such as the Privacy Act has also contributed to high spending on security this year, Gartner said.
Gartner noted a rise in security services delivered over the cloud.
By 2015, about 10 per cent of all IT security enterprise product capabilities will be delivered in the cloud, and more than 30 per cent of security controls deployed to the small or midsize business (SMB) segment will be cloud-based, the analyst said.
Also, Gartner predicted that more organisations will turn to specialised security firms to handle data protection, security risk management and security infrastructure management. By 2018, more than half of organisations will handle security in this manner, it said.
“A significant portion of organisations are shifting existing resources away from the operational aspects of security technologies, such as security device administration and monitoring, toward mitigation and incident response,” Gartner said.
“This new dynamic has given rise to significant growth throughout the globe for managed security services.”
Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam
Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia