Along with the increasing adoption of technology across the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region, new and sophisticated security threats are becoming an everyday occurrence, bringing the potential loss of these breaches to new heights. There has been a keen competition between malware and security software. Therefore, the investments on security research and software development will never decelerate. According to the latest IDC Asia/Pacific Semiannual Security Software Tracker, all the security software functional markets registered a double-digit year-on-year (YoY) growth in the first half of 2011. The security software market grew 18.5% over 1H 2010 to US$796 million in 1H 2011. As security threats are getting more severe and complex, the overall security software market is forecasted to grow 17.5% to US$1.674 billion in 2011 compared to 2010.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) achieved the highest YoY growth rate of 32%, while the Secure Content and Threat Management (SCTM), Security and Vulnerability Management (SVM), and Other Security Softwares reached a YoY growth rate of 16.4%, 14.2% and 21% respectively.
“We can see vendors applying their cloud computing technology to their security infrastructure including integrating the cloud based security functions into their products. It has become the mainstream of the secure content and threat management. Traditional client based virus library security scanning has become a heavy burden in terms of IT resources consumption, not to mention that it is incapable of handling the latest virus or threat evolution, like zero day malware. As resource sharing and optimization are the major objectives under the highway of universal virtualization, the adoption rate of cloud based security infrastructure, which can offer a light-weighted instantly-updated global virus library, will continue to grow and extend into all the security functional markets,” says Marco Lam, Market Analyst of IDC Asia/Pacific Software Research.
Cyber crimes and cyber threats in the IT world are becoming more well organized and efficient. Nowadays invasion could be embedded in a botnet, which could seed virus and Trojan into the linked server or station without waking up the security alarm. It could also be an embodiment of a link in social media or email. Infected computers, or newly formed “bots”, can then be used to steal passwords and record keystrokes, while concealing the attacker’s identity. Or even to stir up a ‘denial of service attack’ to the public utility or stock exchange market. The financial lost can be huge and it is becoming a huge threat to the public utility.
Although Identity and Access Management is still in the development stage, IDC foresees its role to become more crucial in the future IT environment. As virtualization and mobile devices are gaining popularity against the traditional client work station and server, identity protection is becoming the prerequisite requirement for communication across the boundaries.
More loopholes are going to be found in popular smart phone and surging tablet applications arena. This will present a severe challenge and threat to the business environment. These new threats will compel IT management to regulate the use of applications on personal devices within corporation networks, as security threats embedded within an application can bypass most of the security gateways if it is run after entering the company network. This will evolve into different form of compromises like insider sabotages, identity fraud, breaches of insecure networks, unauthorized access to corporate systems, networks, and confidential information.
“Security threats are becoming more tenacious and organized. As we rely more and more on IT technology in our daily life, IDC expects companies to continue to invest and install the latest detecting and defending tools to protect their assets. Thus, the overall security software market will continue to experience a decent growth despite the signs of economic slowdown,” Marco concludes.
