London, Jan. 27, 2021: The Internet of Things (IoT) was currently experiencing an increased demand in security services focused primarily around device management, network security, secure data hosting and over-the-air device management, according to new research.
Firmware updates are expected to push IoT security services to US$16.8 billion by 2026, according to a report by global tech market advisory firm ABI Research.
“The expansion of IoT communications and interconnected assets has become a rather attractive target for cyberattacks, which have been increasing in intensity and sophistication with each passing year. Additionally, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic IoT connectivity, digitization and automation demands have risen sharply for most end-markets while digital security services struggled to maintain IoT operations under overburdened IT infrastructures for Operational Technologies (OT) assets,” explained Dimitrios Pavlakis, Digital Security Analyst at ABI Research in a press release.
ABI Research said these realizations alone had not moved the perspective of many IoT players and they still chose to forego security across a wide range of IoT applications, mainly industrial, infrastructure, healthcare and other OT-heavy markets.
What did work in favor of the security ecosystem where the IoT security market was concerned, however, was that organisations honing their IoT monetization strategies had “finally started to acknowledge digital security as an integral part of a healthy ROI over time and reliable management of IoT assets.”
“The lacklustre state of digital security in IoT is not a new thing and we certainly have a long way to go before reaching a sufficiently optimized ecosystem,” said Pavlakis. “But having asset management, security investments and IoT monetization strategies as part of the same equation is certainly a most welcome change. Service providers for both cloud and on-prem deployments should take heed, adapt and greatly expand their service portfolio in order to better serve their clients.”
These findings are from ABI Research’s Security Services for the IoT application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s Digital Security research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.
With cloud computing still being one of the most dominant factors in IoT security, leaving cloud powerhouses like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud and intelligence-focused vendors like IBM and Cisco to attract the market spotlight. However, IoT security has allowed other innovative vendors like Cipher, ControlScan, Alert Logic to enable the transition of IT security tools into the IoT and attract increased attention.
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