Network Security Industry In India

With the increase in internet users in India, the increase in the use of smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices, and the internet contributing to 2.7% of India’s GDP in 2013, companies have been largely extending their businesses online, ranging from marketing in social medias and mobile apps to online banking and e-commerce.

Definition / Scope

The network security industry in India is expected to grow by 50% in the coming two years as reported by KPMG, with the small and medium businesses showing a positive growth trend in the coming years. Financial services and banking and technology information, communication and entertainment are the sectors showing a positive growth trend in the network security industry of India. As per Gartner, Network security (Hardware, Software and Services) market of India has generated a revenue of $953 million in 2014 and is projected to reach $1.06 billion in 2015.

Network security consists of products and services used to monitor and secure network and databases, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data and securing all sensitive information from hackers.

With the increasing growth of data theft, money extortion online and other computer crimes, both small and medium enterprises and large scale enterprises in India, especially those in the financial services and banking sector, have begun to realize the importance of network security systems and have increased their investment in network security.

In the recent years, network security has also been increasing employment to a large extent and contributing even more to the Indian economy.

Market Overview

The Indian security market has achieved a steady growth in the past decade. Despite of the economic slowdown and rupee depreciation in the past few years, the network security market has been in great demand by enterprises.

With more businesses offering online services and the growth of e-commerce in India, businesses are laying importance on the network security.

Companies have started investing more and more in the network security to secure their online services and information and to comply with the regulatory rules.

Network security providers have been expanding their businesses to actively meet the need of security among enterprises and consumers alike.

Top Market Opportunities

Some of the areas where India must ensure robust cyber security include banking industry, thermal power sector, satellites, telecom industry, etc. Indian insurance sector showed interest in cyber insurance in the year 2014 and this is a good sign for both the insurance companies and the insured individuals and entities. Recently, the National Security Council (NSC) proposed three pronged cyber security action plan for India. However, India still has to cover a long road before it would consider itself to be even moderately cyber secure, as reported by P4LO.

Though varying industry sectors are spending and implementing network security at different levels, the emerging market of e-commerce in India which relies heavily on online services is yet to expand their network security solutions to a higher level.

New companies entering into the market should focus mainly on SMBs which is predicted to grow at a fast pace in the immediate future. They should also focus on providing security solutions for the e-commerce industry which is blooming at a very fast pace in India.

Though the security awareness today is creating increased budget allocation for security, there is still a skill deficit in the IT security market in India, consequently driving up the market opportunities for security consulting, implementation and managed security services.

Market Drivers

India is the world’s largest sourcing destination for information technology (IT) industry, accounting for approximately 52% of the US$ 124-130 billion market. The industry employs about 10 million Indians and continues to contribute significantly to the social and economic transformation in the country. The IT and ITeS industry in India is divided into four major segments – IT services, business process management (BPM), software products and engineering services and hardware. The IT-BPM sector in India grew at a compound annual growth of 25% over 2000-2013, which is 3-4 times higher than the global IT-BPM spend, and is estimated to expand by 9.5% to US$ 300 billion by 2020. With the IT industry blooming at such a high rate in India and more companies engaging IT services in their business, the network security industry of India has a very promising future with more companies plunging into the industry.

India is the fourth largest base for young businesses in the world and home to 3000 tech startups and is set to increase its base to 11,500 tech startups by 2020, as per report by NASSCOM and Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd. India’s internet economy is expected to touch US$ 161.26 billion by 2018, accounting for 5 percent of the country’s GDP, according to Boston Consulting Group and Internet and Mobile Association of India. Every startup companies and also the existing companies are engaging their businesses with IT services from internet based applications to public cloud services. With this growth of implementation of IT services in every company today, network security industry is surely expected to grow at a very high pace. The more technology dependent companies get, the more they will rely on network security to secure their databases and services which are almost impossible without technology now.

The state of information security survey of India 2013, by PwC, said that a survey showed 75% respondents from India compared to 45% of global peers expected an increase in network security spending. According to the survey, medium businesses saw an estimated 17% increase in security spending in 2011-2012 followed by small businesses with an increase in 14%. Large businesses and government organizations saw an increase of 11% and 8% spending respectively. The survey reported that while financial services companies are striving to have the highest network security practices, telecom and information communication and entertainment companies are rising up especially leading in information security strategies for new technologies like mobile, social media and cloud computing.

Despite of the increasing awareness of the importance of network security among the companies in India, in 2014, IT security budgets in Indian companies were reported to have declined by 17% even as losses from security breaches increases by 20%. This is mainly due to companies not coping up with more high security services and systems as they move ahead and implement new technologies. With more technologies being implemented by companies, however they failed to improve their network security leading to the increased cyber security threats. The Indian companies have reduced the average security spending from $4.8 million to $4 in 2014.

Some of the key market drivers to the growth of network security in India are as follows:

Increasing business needs and financial goals
Regulatory and compliance requirements especially for the telecom sectors
The world’s third most vulnerable country in terms of data breach threats and malicious cyber activities.
Highly visible security incidents in 2013 and 2014
Increasing financially and politically motivated advanced targeted attacks
Overall IT spending growth
Growing adoption of emerging technologies such as mobility, cloud computing and social media

Industry Challenges

Network security awareness is increasing steadily not only among the businesses and government organizations but also among the consumers as well. However the pool of talents among Indians in information security skills is extremely weak, as per ‘The Talent Crisis in Infosec’, report by EC Council (International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants), October 2013. As per this report, only 0.97% of Indian students have the basic skills in information security. Just around 13% of students have an understanding of concepts and can be trained in information security. More than 86% have not been made aware of skills or are not trainable.

Even though the importance of network security is well understood by most businesses nowadays, the importance of data privacy and security is not well understood by consumers in India. This situation is likely to hinder the growth of industry in the customer security sub segment.

As organizations become more dependent on technology for their businesses without fully understanding the complications, they are becoming susceptible to the cyber security threats and these threats are increasing day by day. In spite of the security breaches causing a loss of average $194 million in 2013 which doubled to $414 in 2014, Indian companies treat these cyber security threat as a mere IT problem. This was reported by the PwC’s ‘State of the Information Security Survey- India 2015’.

The shortage of trained personnel and technology know-how have slowed the growth of the IT security market, as reported by KPMG.

Enterprises mobility and cloud services are gaining greater traction with organizations in India. Yet information security for mobile devices and cloud services lags behind adoption rates, as reported by the PwC’s ‘Global State of Information Security Survey 2014’.

The annual survey of security, IT and business executives in India showed the total number of security incidents detected was more than one million in 2014, which amounts to 2,800 attacks per day.

Another key issue mainly among the SMBs in India is their lack of leadership to set out the network security strategy and insufficient capital and operating expenditures to spend on network security as they lay less importance on security.

Internet of things is making data more vulnerable. By 2020, the same IP protocol and wireless networks which are being used to access internet and web would be used to connect ATM kiosks, washing machine, car stereo and traffic signals. If any hacker gets access to any one of these networks, the consequences will be destructive. Being an interconnected universe, one single hack would lead to numerous vulnerabilities to other systems or devices.

Other Key Market Trends

Market Outlook

Network security has become a very essential element in an organization considering the growth of IT implementation in every aspect and this industry is expected to positively grow very largely in the coming years. Cyber security threats are becoming prevalent all over the world with more technologies being implemented by organizations and utilized by customers. With the increase in cyber threats in India companies are becoming more vulnerable than ever before. The importance and awareness of network security should be comprehended by organizations, government bodies or individuals and should improve their security measures to prevent the risk of such threats.

Banking and financial services industry that have had a strong focus on security are now preparing themselves for even better and high security measures coping up with the new technologies as well as the new cyber threats, and are investing in network security services and solutions to grow efficiently with their technology dependent businesses.

Government though a little slow never comprises on their security expenditure and will continue to protect their sensitive data, making sure they invest in best technology.

The Indian government is embarking on a plan to create a workforce of 500,000 IT professionals skilled in cyber security in the next 5 years through capacity building, skills development and training. The government plans to build and operate 24/7 National Critical Information and Infrastructure Protection Center.

Competitive Landscape

Top 10 IT security enterprises in India

Anoosmar Technologies, Pune, Maharashtra: A provider of enterprise – grade solution which brings secure file sharing, endpoint backup, endpoint encryption, Google apps backup and mobility into a single platform.
ArrayShield Technologies: Chennai, Tamil Nadu: A provider of pattern based two factor authentication solutions. With its 2 factor authentication, organization’s infrastructure can be secured against major security attacks like key logging, screen logging, and others.
Instasafe, Bangalore, Karnataka: A cloud security startup focusing on enabling businesses to adopt and embrace cloud computing technologies and applications safely and securely.
MicroWorld Technologies, Mumbai, Maharashtra: An advanced security solution provider specializing in AntiVirus, Anti Spam, content security and network intrusion prevention solutions.
Nevales Networks, Mumbai, Maharashtra: A provider of comprehensive and affordable UTM based Network Security Services for the SME, firewall, VPN, intrusion detection, antivirus, antispam, content filtering on a SAAS model.
Nevis Networks, Pune, Maharashtra: A provider of ASIC-based local area network (LAN) security systems to ensure data integrity, network availability, and regulatory compliance.
Paladion Networks, Bangalore, Karnataka: A global full service managed security provider committed to delivering technology solutions to ensure impenetrable security to 700 customers and 30 countries across Asia, US. and Europe.
Quickheal, Pune, Maharashtra: A provider of antiVirus Solutions and an ISO 9001 certified company.
Seclore Technology, Mumbai, Maharashtra: A security software company providing information security solutions in the areas of information usage control, information rights management (IRM) and secure outsourcing.
XenArmor, Bangalore, Karnataka: A global security company specialized in enterprise security products, training and Cloud based security services.

References

Economic Times India
National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM)
Gartner (IT research and advisory company)
Online resource center for Perry4Law organization (P4LO)
Silicon India
Business Standard News
SearchSecurity.IN
trak.in (Business of Tech, Mobile and Startups in India)
channelworld.in
AMI partners (Global SMB Insights and GTM Strategy Consulting)
Gyan Research Analytics Pvt. Ltd. 2012
PwC State of Information Security Survey