Given the growing need for cloud security, Gartner Forecasts Security and Risk Management Spending in India to Grow 12% year-on-year in 2024. This was released at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit held in Mumbai. End-user spending on security and risk management (SRM) in India is forecast to total $2.9 billion in 2024, an increase of 12.4% from 2023.
According to Gartner, Indian organizations will continue to increase their security spending through 2024 due to legacy IT modernization using cloud technology, industry demand for digital platforms, updated regulatory environment, and continuous remote/hybrid work.
“In 2024, chief information and security officers (CISOs) in India will prioritize their spending on SRM to improve organizational resilience and compliance,” said Shailendra Upadhyay, Sr Principal at Gartner. “With the introduction of stringent government measures mandating security breach reporting and digital data protection, CISOs are facing heightened responsibility in safeguarding critical assets against evolving cyber threats.”
In fact the forecast highlights how In 2024, cloud security spending in India is projected to record the highest year-on-year growth at 28% to $121 million from $94 million in 2023. The adoption of cloud and multi-cloud presents security challenges, causing an increased focus on cloud security by Indian organizations. Interestingly it also highlights the impact of hybrid work arrangements and “emphasized the necessity for security controls, leading to an increase in cloud security spending,” said Upadhyay.
Spending on infrastructure protection is projected to grow 20.4% in 2024. This is fueled by the expansion of both the endpoint protection platform (EPP) and security information and event management (SIEM) markets, which make up the majority of the infrastructure protection market.
Outlining the most trgent cybersecurity trends for Indian CISOs in 2024, Abhyuday Data, Director Analyst at Gartner added that the emergence of generative AI (GenAI) has caused one of the biggest disruptions in digital and business sectors in the last couple of years. “Through ethical, safe and secure implementation of this technology, CISOs can improve the performance of their security functions and enhance organizational resilience.”
To effectively handle the combined impact, CISOs in India must prioritise two top cybersecurity trends, as per Gartner:
- Gartner predicts that by 2025, GenAI will lead to a spike in the cybersecurity resources and one may see more than a 15% incremental spend on application and data security.
- In a bid to work towards bridging the communications gap, outcome driven metrics (ODMs) are becoming central to creating a defensible cybersecurity investment strategy. They provide a credible and defensible expression of risk appetite that supports direct investment.
Responding to questions posed by Financial Express Online, Data added the challaneges for CISOs include the need to opt for the “pragmatic ways of implementing GenAI driven solutions. Right now the challenge is overcome the hype-based approach.” But how will it impact the cost scenario? Data believes that “AI will no doubt create a cost effective scenario as it could potentially do that work faster.”