Cyber crime and security market landscape
In today’s technologically driven market, Sri Lanka forms an integral part of the global cyberspace. Internet penetration has led to an exponential growth in cyberspace due to the rapidly growing ownership of smart phones, access to Internet and online retailing trends have also increased the expansion of cyberspace. The Internet has also created borderless societies, providing unprecedented
Sujit Christy
opportunities to generate wealth and stimulate economies. It has become part of daily life for residents of Sri Lanka to communicate via e-mail and social networks, carry out banking transactions and use payment cards to shop online. The success of the Internet and online systems can be primarily attributed to its relative openness and low barriers to entry.
Enterprises have been rapidly adopting cloud-based services and wireless communication while the consumer has shifted towards the interconnectivity of laptops, iPhones, wearable computers, gaming systems, other mobile devices and the list is endless. Many of these devices are either themselves untrustworthy or are interacting with untrustworthy mobile networks. Few have the computing power to perform traditional security functions of familiar desktops and laptops, making them even easier targets. As difficult as the security problems were before, it just got a lot worse, creating new opportunities for criminals to access critical personal data, on top of the increasing number of devices connected to the Internet. These factors are partly responsible for the serious threats to cyberspace in the form of cyber warfare, cyber espionage, cyber terrorism and cybercrime.
Cyber warfare and cybercrime are a growing threat, now more than ever. The increased reliance on the Internet has created unexpected vulnerabilities that allow coordinated and complex attacks to happen within minutes. The cost of cybercrime globally has been soaring. Some forms of cybercrime costs more than that of trafficking in marijuana, heroin and cocaine with a single cybercrime victim to every three Internet users having been estimated.
Today, cyber security has become a major concern for all the sectors and industries operating with the support of cyber space. Hence, the ratification of cyber security solutions has increased to combat the advanced and sophisticated threats created by professional adversaries. Cloud service providers and organisations are expected to adopt solutions for cyber security more readily because of growing instances of cybercrime, which may cause the loss of intellectual and financial assets, and may tarnish the national infrastructure and economy.
Organisations that did not traditionally focus on, or even invest in, a lot of security technologies are now beginning to realise the implications that a weak security and risk posture can have on their business. This has prompted them to continuously look for technologies and security system to combat cyber attacks. Verticals such as banking and financial services that have had a strong focus on security are now preparing themselves for the third era of IT digitalisation by investing in technology approaches that can enable them to grow their business securely, while embracing digital business models.
The threat continues to accelerate in capability and scale. Cybercrime is big business and has finally reached the tipping point where consumers and regulators are demanding that businesses deploy effective solutions. Some of the mature technology buying segments and leading security adopters are enterprises in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, IT/ITeS, retail and conglomerates segments. They are now looking to enhance their deployment of preventive security controls with continued focus on security operations and incident response with a view to protecting against advanced targeted attacks. Though this heightened awareness has created increased budget allocations for security, there is still a skills deficit in the security space both locally and globally, consequently driving up the market opportunity for security consulting, implementation and managed security services.
The global cyber security market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8 per cent from US$71 billion in 2013 to $155 billion in 2020 (Frost & Sullivan Global Cybersecurity Market Assessment, 2014). The complexity of the cyber threat landscape requires high-level technical expertise and large-scale cross-jurisdictional investigations to combat cybercrime effectively.
(The writer is a Governance, Risk and Compliance professional and Director at Layers-7 Seguro Consultoria (Pvt) Ltd.
He can be emailed at
sujit@layers-7.com).