Internet Security Market To Reach $58 Billion By 2010

LONDON — The global Internet security market is expected to grow at an annual 16 percent over the next five years to reach $58.1 billion by 2010, according to a soon to be published report from Business Communications Co Inc.

The company says the recent spate of serious Internet security threats will continue to be the key market driver.

BCC (Norwalk, CT) estimates that between 2002-2004 the market for Internet security products increased at an average annual growth rate of over 30 percent. This year, BCC estimates it will be worth $27.7 billion.

It suggests that following the huge increase following incidents surrounding 9/11, which required increased security on all fronts, the next five years will see slower but still substantial growth.

The report focuses on hardware appliances, software solutions, and services, such as consulting and management of security services. It notes that currently, the market is dominated by software solutions.However, it is expected that, in the near future, the market will be driven by the growth in the hardware security appliances segment, which is expected to grow at the fastest rate as compared to the market for software security.

Currently, the U.S. and Europe account for a significant portion of the Internet security market. However, the opportunity is expected to grow significantly in the Asia Pacific region, especially in China and India, according to Business Communications Company.

Some of the primary technologies include security 3A and identity management, secure control management, firewall, intrusion detection and prevention, and security information management. Firewall and content management currently account for a majority share of the market.

The researchers suggest the increasing need to counter "zero-day" attacks along with the increasing popularity of "defense-in-depth" strategies will start bringing unified threat management solutions to the forefront.

And some of the older security technologies, such as firewalls, will lose share to new technologies, such as unified threat management devices, which offer a single device for providing firewall, antivirus, and intrusion detection/prevention capabilities.0