SINGAPORE, 15 JANUARY 2010 — The Asia Pacific region excluding Japan (APEJ) is expected to display a stronger performance in 2010 as companies and users respond to emerging threats to IT security, according to IDC.
“The rise in the security market is fuelled by the increasingly sophisticated threats and management overheads facing each IT organisation,” said Judy Wu, research manager for IDC Asia Pacific security research.
The security and vulnerability management (SVM) market is predicted to post the largest growth this year among the segments of the IT security industry, according to the IDC Asia/Pacific Semiannual Security Software Tracker. This market will expand 19 per cent to US$115.44 million in 2010.
IDC also noted that the SVM segment is a “key growth area across the Asia Pacific”. It said this becomes more manifest as companies turn to SVM's capabilities—patch management, policy enforcement and security incident analysis and management—to reduce complexity and increase management efficiency.
Not far behind SVM in terms of growth rate is the secure content and threat management (SCTM) market, which is forecast to increase 18.4 per cent and reach US$1.13 billion.
Although trailing behind SCTM, the identity and access management (IAM) market is expected to widen 15.2 per cent and generate US$326.38 million.
Exploiting vulnerabilities
“The security landscape has been seeing new threats growing explosively in number and complexity—attacks that exploit the vulnerabilities of applications, insider sabotages, identity fraud and unauthorised access to corporate systems and networks,” Wu said.
Wu also described regulatory compliance requirement as a “significant driver” for security solutions.
“Companies are required to align with international regulations, standards and best practices when collaborating with business partners around the world,” Wu said. “Many of these companies have turned to SVM products to establish a security management framework for various compliance requirements such as policy compliance, log archiving and auditing.”
The IDC report pointed out that previous purchase and deployment of security products led to the increased management and integration complexity.
Companies have been encouraged to adopt advanced security tools to automate their operational requirements. This resulted from the excess workload due to the significant number of systems and applications that an IT organisation needs to handle.
In the first half of 2009, there was a "minor decline" in security spending compared to the same period in 2008 due the global recession. The public sectors, including government and education, as well as telecommunications and financial firms, were those that invested in IT security in the first half of 2009.
In the second half of 2009, however, IDC noted "signs" of increased IT security spending.
"Moving forward, cost saving will still remain a key initiative in most enterprises. We expect companies to continue to find ways and leverage new security technologies such as policy and IT compliance suites, as well as vulnerability assessment and risk management products to increase management efficiency," said Wu.
