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Upside Opportunities for Cloud-Based Security Services

Last year we witnessed the Internet of Things (IoT) hype reach a peak, with news of connected smart cities, connected cars and many new offerings. All of which established 2016 as the time for a reality-check, where IoT becomes real for more businesses in more parts of the globe.

Worldwide spending on IoT security will reach $348 million in 2016, that's a 23.7 percent increase from 2015 spending of $281.5 million, according to the latest market study by Gartner.

Spending on IoT security is expected to reach $547 million in 2018. Gartner predicts that IoT security market spending will increase at a faster rate after 2020, as improved skills, organizational change and more scalable service options improve execution.

"The market for IoT security products is currently small but it is growing as both consumers and businesses start using connected devices in ever greater numbers," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.

Market Development for IoT Security

Gartner now forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016 -- that's up by 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 11.4 billion by 2018. However, Gartner believes that considerable variation exists among industry sectors as a result of different levels of prioritization and security awareness.

The market for IoT security products is dependent upon IoT adoption by various sectors of the global networked economy. Endpoint spending will be dominated by connected cars, as well as other complex machines and vehicles -- such as heavy trucks, commercial aircraft, farming and construction equipment.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, more than 25 percent of identified attacks in enterprises will involve IoT, although IoT will account for less than 10 percent of IT security budgets.

Moreover, security vendors will be challenged to provide usable IoT security features, because of the limited assigned enterprise IT budgets for these applications and the decentralized approach to early IoT implementation.

According to the Gartner assessment, IT security vendors will focus too much on spotting vulnerabilities and exploits, rather than segmentation and other long-term means that better protect IoT applications.

Exploring New Apps for Cloud-Based Security

"The effort of securing IoT is expected to focus more on the management, analytics and provisioning of devices and their data. IoT business scenarios will require a delivery mechanism that can also grow and keep pace with requirements in monitoring, detection, access control and other security needs," concluded Mr. Contu.

The future of cloud-based security services is linked with the future of the IoT ecosystem. In fact, the IoT's fundamental strength in scale and presence will not be fully realized without cloud-based security services to deliver an acceptable level of operation for many organizations in a cost-effective manner.

That why by 2020, Gartner predicts that over half of all IoT technology implementations will use some form of cloud-based security service. That's the emerging new upside opportunity for growth.

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