Increase in cyberattacks, threat to cyber-physical infrastructure and malicious nature of ransomware to drive security spending in MENA

10X Technology

Mita Srinivasan
10X Technology
Published:

Increase in cyberattacks, threat to cyber-physical infrastructure and malicious nature of ransomware to drive security spending in MENA

Cloud security is forecasted to record the highest growth at 33.8 percent, followed by data security, growing 21.9 percent. The region’s strategic focus on public cloud growth, intended to smoothen its shift to a ‘data-driven economy’ from an ‘oil exporting economy’ will contribute to the fast growth of these segments.

Gartner forecasts Middle East and North Africa (MENA) end-user spending on security and risk management will grow 11.2 percent in 2022 to total $2.6 billion. In 2022, end-user spending is forecast to increase in all segments of information security and risk management.

Cloud security is forecast to record the highest growth at 33.8 percent, followed by data security, growing 21.9 percent (see Table below.) The region’s strategic focus on public cloud growth, intended to smoothen its shift to a ‘data-driven economy’ from an ‘oil exporting economy’ will contribute to the fast growth of these segments.

Security & Risk Management end user spending
Security & Risk Management end user spending
Gartner

“Cyber-attacks have become more sophisticated over the last two years, and the MENA region is not immune,” said Shailendra Upadhyay, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The malicious nature of the attacks has forced security leaders in the region to relook at their security strategy and increase their security and risk management spending to make their businesses future-ready.”

“The identity and access management (IAM) market will continue to grow in the long term as organizations become more aware of the criticality of identity controls within their larger security architecture. Growth in cloud computing has shifted security from perimeter-based approaches to identity context-based approaches. This, and other longer-term growth drivers, such as identity being foundational to digital business transformation and optimization initiatives and compliance and regulatory pressures, should continue to propel demand for IAM solutions,” added Upadhyay.

COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation and SaaS adoption, which are the primary growth drivers for the cloud access security broker (CASB) market. As organizations look to support remote workers and continue to adopt and expand SaaS usage, CASB will be one of the key products addressing the need. The CASB market will continue to grow through 2023, and the convergence toward secure access service edge (SASE) will capture some of the growth starting around 2024 onward.