Global IOT security spending will reach $1.5 billion in 2018, a 28% increase from 2017.
This is according to an IOT security spending report conducted by Gartner, which found that IOT security initiatives by global organisations will increase from last year's spending of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion this year, as organisations seek to improve IOT software and hardware security asset management initiatives.
By 2021, regulatory compliance, notes Gartner, will become the prime influencer for IOT security uptake. According to the report, IOT-based attacks are already a reality, with nearly 20% of global organisations observing at least one IOT-based attack in the past three years.
Despite the steady year-over-year growth in worldwide spending, Gartner predicts that through 2020, the biggest inhibitor to growth for IOT security will come from a lack of prioritisation and implementation of security best practices and tools in IOT initiative planning. This will hamper the potential spend on IOT security by 80%.
"In IOT initiatives, organisations often don't have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being utilised by smart connected devices," says Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.
"We expect to see demand for tools and services aimed at improving discovery and asset management, software and hardware security assessment, and penetration testing. In addition, organisations will look to increase their understanding of the implications of externalising network connectivity." These factors will be the main drivers of spending growth for the forecast period with spending on IOT security expected to reach $3.1 billion in 2021."
By 2021, Gartner predicts that regulatory compliance will become the prime influencer for IOT security uptake. Industries having to comply with regulations and guidelines aimed at improving critical infrastructure protection are being compelled to increase their focus on security as a result of IOT permeating the industrial world.
"Interest is growing in improving automation in operational processes through the deployment of intelligent connected devices, such as sensors, robots and remote connectivity, often through cloud-based services," says Contu.
"This innovation, often described as industrial Internet of things or Industry 4.0, is already impacting on security in industry sectors deploying operational technology, such as energy, oil and gas, transportation, and manufacturing."
Earl Perkins, research vice president at Gartner, says the biggest challenge security and risk managers will face is shifting their perception of how to manage and assess risk.
"Security managers are accustomed to taking a calculated risk on how to mitigate threats in their organisation, but the rise of IOT introduces new variables to the risk formula, variables that need to be incorporated into traditional means of assessing and calculating IT risks. As a whole, the industry will need to acknowledge IOT's pervasive presence and adopt new strategies that consider our digital world," notes Perkins.
According to a 2018 Thales Data Threat Report, organisations around the world are facing increasing pressures to secure their data, driven by escalating cyber attacks, traditional insider threats, privacy requirements and data residency regulations.
"This year we found that organisations are dealing with massive change as a result of digital transformation, but this change is creating new attack surfaces and new risks that need to be offset by data security controls," says Garrett Bekker, principal security analyst, information security for 451 Research and author of the report.
"While times have changed, security strategies have not: security spending increases that focus on the data itself are at the bottom of IT-security spending priorities, leaving customer data, financial information and intellectual property severely at risk. If security strategies aren't equally as dynamic in this fast-changing threat environment, the rate of breaches will continue to increase."
Cyber security firm FireEye, predicts that the shortage of skilled workers, an increase in cloud adoption as well as IOT are some of the challenges that await the cyber security industry in 2018.
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