The rapid adoption of e-commerce by businesses and consumers will see the global market for internet security grow seven-fold to $7bn in 2001, says industry analyst Datamonitor. Security breaches cost companies up to $16bn worldwide in damages last year, and as more and more commercial applications are conducted over the Net, companies will become increasingly security conscious, spending greater amounts of money on technologies to protect their information. Datamonitor predicts booming growth in the sales of all security products, but expects the fastest growing areas to be in the encryption and public-key infrastructure (PKI) markets, as these technologies are still in the developmental stages and can provide the foundation for a total security solution for complex e-commerce applications. The market for PKI products and services is expected to soar to $1.9bn by 2001- a notable growth rate twice that of the overall internet security market – driven by the belief, says Datamonitor, that most consumer transactions would be unthinkable without the security which digital authentication can provide. According to the company’s research, the market for PKI products is predicted to grow at a phenomenal 124% between 1996 and 2001, while sales of encryption technology will climb 70% over the same period. Although anti-virus software, firewalls and authentication products currently dominate the global market, these will soon be surpassed by the increased demand for PKI and encryption technologies, says Datamonitor. Anti-virus software is the biggest selling product – as the security threat pre-dates the internet age – and is predicted to remain so.
