Cyber crime and security: Emerging opportunities for India

BANGALORE: The infosecurity industry is poised for growth similar to that witnessed by the IT industry in the nineties. Design, development and deployment of systems that enhance security are currently gaining in prominence. Today, global organizations consider enterprise network security as a strategic priority.

There is an impending boom in the infosecurity industry in India as well. India has emerged as the second fastest growing IT security market in the Asia Pacific region. Indian enterprises are in the process of either establishing or reinforcing their network security architecture. IT budgets, with a focus on developing an effective IT security management processes are becoming increasingly substantial.

Rising global IT spends

To begin with, IT spend is definitely on the rise again, from a global perspective! In the US, IT spend was around US $1 trillion (IDC 2004 estimates). Global IT spend was US $2.1 trillion (roughly 6.6 percent of world's GDP). IDC found that the major spenders were the US at US $762 billion, Japan at US $362 billion and Germany at US $139 billion. Others in top 10 are Britain, France, Italy, Canada, China, Brazil and Australia (all IDC 2004 estimates).

Not surprisingly, IT security spend is the fastest growing segment at 25 percent CAGR. As per estimates from IDC, it is likely to grow from US$ 17 million in 2001 to US $45 million in 2006. An Information Week-PwC survey found that 10 percent of corporate expenses are incurred on security.

Threats and vulnerabilities are growing as well. According to Ms. Mayurakshi Ray, principal consultant, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), largest number of targeted attacks have been on the following segments - financial services, manufacturing, transportation, media/entertainment, telecom, high-tech, nonprofit, power and energy, etc.

Ms. Ray was speaking at a road show on ICT & Network Security 2006 International Exhibition and Conference, to be held concurrently with the 14th Convergence India 2006 event in New Delhi from 21-23 March, 2006. Organized by Delhi based Exhibitions India Pvt. Ltd., the ICT & Network Security 2006 will focus on five areas deemed critical to better information security - consumer awareness, early warning systems, corporate governance, technical standards and security across software development.

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