Information security spending is to hit $75.4bn in 2015, which signifies a 4.7% increase from the year before.
Elizabeth Kim, a research analyst at Gartner, said: "Interest in security technologies is increasingly driven by elements of digital business, particularly cloud, mobile computing and now also the Internet of Things, as well as by the sophisticated and high-impact nature of advanced targeted attacks."
The increase is not just the result of firms taking information security more seriously though, but is also a consequence of increased legislation from governments worldwide. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and South Africa, have seen cyber security legislation prompt a rise in security spending.
However, the rise the in the value of the dollar has caused the prices of some security software, much of which originates in America, to rise by 20%. Gartner therefore expects some European firms will defer spending until 2016.
Gartner also downgraded its forecast for endpoint protection platforms and consumer security software, on the back of increased commoditisation of these tools
David Flower, managing director, UK & Ireland, of endpoint security solution provider Bit9 + Carbon Black, said:
"While I agree that the commoditisation of anti-virus tools is going to impact endpoint security spend – particularly when vendors such as Microsoft are giving AV away for free – this is not representative of the whole endpoint security market.
"In fact, we are seeing growing demand for more intelligent endpoint security technologies as servers, point of sale and user devices increasingly become the targets for hackers looking to exfiltrate data."
