CybersecurityU.S. federal investment in cybersecurity to reach $13.3 billion by 2015

A recent report by INPUT — “Federal Information Security Market, 2010-2015” — predicts that federal investment in information security will rise from $8.6 billion in 2010 to $13.3 billion by 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 percent, nearly twice the rate of overall federal IT spending. “There is a general consensus that the government has a lot of work to do to address weaknesses in its cyber security,” says INPUT principal analyst John Slye.

“Over the last year, federal agencies have seen a 78 percent growth in cyber incidents. This demand for increased information security is greater than any other current technology, leaving it more immune to the recent federal budget cuts.” Key drivers for the expected increase in investment in information security include a 445 percent increase in cyber security incidents since 2006, a shortage of qualified security professionals, and an increasingly complex and interconnected technology environment. “While agencies continue to make incremental progress toward secure infrastructures, a lack of leadership, ambiguous roles, technical challenge, and workforce shortages inhibit the federal government from developing and implementing a cohesive, well-formed national cyber security strategy,” says INPUT principal analyst Angie Petty. “This creates a large opportunity for vendors to bring their combined agency knowledge and operational security expertise to the market.”