11.6% increase in cybersecurity spending amid rising threats

Faced with rising threat levels, businesses globally have increased their spending on cybersecurity to a staggering US$19 billion in the second quarter of 2023. This financial commitment represents an 11.6% growth on a year-to-year basis in the worldwide cybersecurity technology market, despite macroeconomic uncertainties and stretched IT budgets.

Twelve top vendors accounted for almost half of this spending. Leading this list, Palo Alto Networks saw a surge in their market growth of 25.4%, stimulated primarily by a high demand for SASE, SecOps, and cloud security. Following them, Fortinet capitalised on its increased growth in network security, though their Q2 growth of 19% marked a deceleration from their first-quarter growth of 26.2%. In the third position, Cisco saw a slight decline in their spending, dropping from 6.7% to 6.1%, as their business is currently being reformatted under new leadership. The top seven was rounded out with CrowdStrike, Check Point, Okta, and Microsoft.

Matthew Ball, Chief Analyst at Canalys, stated that "Threat levels are at unprecedented heights, with the number of publicly reported ransomware attacks up by more than 50% and breached data records more than doubling in the first eight months of this year. At current rates, 2023 will be the worst year on record, far exceeding 2021 levels."

Ball added that "Discovering vulnerabilities and establishing asset inventories, as well as categorising them based on the level of risk, is critical to prioritise investment in protection. This is also an important foundation for partners in creating remediation plans for customers when attacks take place. The cybersecurity services opportunity for partners will be larger than selling cybersecurity technology this year, with spending forecast to grow 13.2% to US$143.2 billion in 2023. Managed security services and integration services will be the fastest-growing areas."

A vast majority of cybersecurity technology spending was carried through the channel, accounting for 91.5% in Q2 2023, which marked an increase from 90.5% in the same quarter of the previous year. With the escalating risk of cyber threats, customers have shown an increased need for channel partners that can help in building cyber-resilience.

On a regional basis, North America showed a resilient spending approach, with a rise in investments by 12.6%. Spendings in EMEA and Latin America also saw a growth of 11.1% and 13.4%, respectively. However, the growth rate appeared to slow a bit in the Asia Pacific region where organizations dialed down their spending, resulting in a growth rate of only 8.8%.