FEBRUARY 5--Despite tight IT spending budgets, the worldwide security-software market is expected to reach $4.3 billion in 2002, an 18% increase over revenue of $3.6 billion in 2001, according to Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Inc. (San Jose, CA; www.gartner.com/security). Increased security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks are expected to stimulate the market as industries make investments to guard against the possibility of cyberattacks.
"Enterprises are looking particularly at defensive security technologies such as antivirus software, intrusions-detection systems, and firewalls," said Colleen Graham, industry analyst for Gartner Dataquest's Software Industry Research group. "Technologies such as biometrics and other forms of authentication are also getting a great deal of attention, but because of the high cost of rolling out such technologies, mass adoption of these products will not occur before 2003."
Leading security-software investments in 2001 were the telecommunications and communications industries. In 2002, government, education, information technology, and financial services are expected to increase security software spending while telecommunications, communications and services are projected to cut back.
"Financial-services companies are critically concerned about the infrastructure-dependent nature of the industry and are anxious to prevent outages, such as those suffered after Sept. 11, from occurring again," Graham said. "Government and defense will increase spending in reaction to public concern about the shamefully low scores received in security audits performed in reaction to increased concerns about the security of the government IT infrastructure."
Aside from the Sept. 11 attacks, several well-publicized hacks, virus outbreaks and distributed denial of service attacks thrust the need for security into public awareness, ultimately boosting the market, according to Gartner Dataquest.
