How much will be spent on security this year?

Spending on software services set to increase at the expense of hardware services

Global spending on security is set to top $86bn (£66.8bn) in 2017 and rise to $93bn next year, according to Gartner.

The market watcher claims that services will be the fastest-growing segment of security, particularly outsourcing and consultancy.

Spending on hardware support services will slow, however, with Gartner blaming this on the adoption of virtual appliances, public cloud and software-as-a-service solutions.

Sid Deshpande, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: "Rising awareness among CEOs and boards of directors about the business impact of security incidents and an evolving regulatory landscape have led to continued spending on security products and services.

"However, improving security is not just about spending on new technologies. As seen in the recent spate of global security incidents, doing the basics right has never been more important.

"Organisations can improve their security posture significantly just by addressing basic security and risk-related hygiene elements such as threat-centric vulnerability management, centralised log management, internal network segmentation, backups and system hardening."

Gartner forecasts that the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be the biggest trigger for spending on data-loss prevention next year, accounting for 65 per cent of global spending in the segment as a result of "overall panic and unease" ahead of its implementation next year.

The analyst also predicts that 40 per cent of all managed security services sold will be bundled in with larger outsourcing deals by 2020, up from 20 per cent in 2017.