Research firm Forrester says that security software has leapfrogged other software categories in Asia Pacific and now leads the region in terms of expected software spending growth in 2014.
Asked whether spending would increase in 2014 compared to 2013, 55% of 3,382 IT executives and technology budget decision makers in organisations in the Asia Pacific said they would up expenditure by '5% to 10%, or more' in the security software category. Tying for second place were infrastructure software and business intelligence and related applications, with 46% of respondents indicating that they would spend as much more on each of these categories.
According to author and Senior Analyst Manatosh Das, the high growth in security software spending in Asia Pacific is primarily due to:
Migration to public cloud services. "In a recent survey, 41% of Asia Pacific firms identified public cloud and other as-a-service offerings as a high or critical priority for 2014. Increased adoption of public cloud-based services like storage and disaster recovery is stretching the attack surface," he explained.
Increased mobility. The same survey reported that nearly 45% of the Asian organizations which responded identified mobility as a high or critical priority for 2014. Mobility also creates more opportunities for attackers.
More social media adoption. Employees could use uncertified software that might contain malware. "Cybercriminals frequently embed malware in social media websites or third-party applications. Infected users can then spread the malware to other devices," Das warned.
Forrester suggests that businesses balance business functionality against the risk, listing identity and access management, encryption, key management, two-factor authentication, next-generation firewall, security information management, VPN, security modules for mobile device management, mobile application management, and mobile content management technologies as some of the ways to address these risks.
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