Information security spending in India to grow by 17% in 2025

• Many organisations opt to outsource their security needs, leveraging economies of scale to gain comprehensive coverage and more effective risk mitigation strategies.
• Increasing adoption of AI and GenAI, by both cybersecurity vendors and threat actors,  is fundamentally reshaping the security software landscape.

As the global arena for cybersecurity continues to grapple with escalating threats and vulnerabilities, India stands out as a pivotal investment hub for information security.

Forecasts indicate that end-user spending on information security in India is set to experience significant growth, with projections reaching $3.4 billion by 2025 at an astounding rate of 17.1 per cent.

The momentum reflects the growing recognition among Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) of the critical need to prioritise endpoint and cloud security within their organisations.

As companies increasingly embrace digital transformation, the robustness of their information security strategies has become paramount.

Fortified security frameworks

The dire need for fortified security frameworks was underscored by a recent outage at CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity firm, which revealed significant internal vulnerabilities. The incident served as a clarion call for numerous organisations to reevaluate their security postures and strategies.

Shailendra Upadhyay, a Senior Principal at Gartner, emphasised that such events prompt organisations to strengthen their IT environments, making them more resilient and secure.

“Key elements of this resilience focus on revising prevention strategies, bolstering incident response protocols, and ensuring that employees responsible for recovery possess the requisite competencies.”

The forecasted spending in 2025 highlights a paradigm shift in the priorities of organisations. The security services market is anticipated to lead the way in growth, with a remarkable increase of 19.9 per cent.

Within this sector, managed security services (MSS) are projected to experience the most significant surge, with spending anticipated to grow by an impressive 34.3 per cent.

The transition toward managed services reflects a growing recognition of the complexities involved in cybersecurity, particularly against the backdrop of a severe shortage of skilled professionals in the field.

Shortage of talent

As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, many Indian organisations are opting to outsource their security needs, leveraging economies of scale to gain comprehensive coverage and more effective risk mitigation strategies.

A specific area of rapid growth is Managed Detection and Response (MDR), a subcategory of managed security services that is projected to flourish with an extraordinary growth rate of 42.3 per cent.

The surge can be attributed to various factors, including the persistent shortage of cybersecurity talent and the need for organisations to ensure uninterrupted protection against increasingly sophisticated threats.

By outsourcing MDR capabilities, organisations not only enhance their security posture but also equip themselves with advanced tools and expertise that may be prohibitively expensive or impractical to maintain in-house.

The information security landscape in India is further driven by investments in security software, which is anticipated to reach $1.3 billion in 2025, reflecting a yearly growth of 14.8 per cent.

Real time monitoring

The growth in software spending is largely attributed to the rapid expansion of public cloud services. Notably, Gartner estimates a 34 per cent increase in public cloud services in India for 2025, driven by organisations’ ongoing digital transformation efforts.

The expansion necessitates robust security solutions to safeguard sensitive data and applications hosted in the cloud.

Moreover, the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) by both cybersecurity vendors and threat actors is fundamentally reshaping the security software landscape.

As enterprises harness the power of AI to enhance their security frameworks, attackers are also leveraging similar technologies to develop more sophisticated tactics.

The cyber arms race compels organisations to invest heavily in advanced security software solutions that can adapt and respond to emerging threats in real time.