Cloud security spending to rocket by a third in 2020 - Gartner

But analyst has slashed growth forecast for wider security market

Cloud security spending will skyrocket by 33 per cent in 2020, according to Gartner, which has warned that the wider security market will endure slower growth this year.

Information security spending is set to grow 2.4 per cent to hit $123.8bn in 2020, down from the 8.7 per cent growth Gartner projected in its December 2019 forecast update.

But while some sub-segments - notably firewalls and network security devices - are expected to endure spending declines this year, the mass shift to remote working and cloud will drive gains elsewhere.

Leading the way is cloud security spending, which Gartner now thinks will swell by 33 per cent to $585m.

The shift to cloud-based delivery models will shield the security market from the full effects of a recession, the analyst said, noting that just 12 per cent of overall security deployments were cloud-based in 2019.

Security services - by far the largest sub-category - will enjoy a modest 3.7 per cent spending increase in 2020 to $64.3bn, Gartner predicts.

Looking at the other major categories, spending on both infrastructure protection and identity management will grow by 5.8 per cent to reach a respective $17.5bn and $10.4bn.

Network security equipment spending, in contrast, will drop by 12.6 per cent to $11.7bn, by Gartner's reckoning.

"Like other segments of IT, we expect security will be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 crisis," said Lawrence Pingree, managing research vice president at Gartner. "Overall we expect a pause and a reduction of growth in both security software and services during 2020."

"However, there are a few factors in favour of some security market segments, such as cloud-based offerings and subscriptions, being propped up by demand or delivery model. Some security spending will not be discretionary and the positive trends cannot be ignored," he said.