Infotech Lead America: Latin American managed security services markets earned revenues of over $331.9 million in 2012 and estimates this to reach $646.2 million in 2017.
The increase in damaging cyber attacks and the publicity it has received is making enterprises in Latin America more conscious of their vulnerability and the need to better handle security needs. Growing realization that security services are a valuable investment and that third party vendors have the expertise and the infrastructure to ward off sophisticated attacks will sustain growth in the managed security services (MSS) market in the region.
Business models shifting towards virtualization and mobility require advanced security measures that only specialist vendors can provide.
Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Bruno Tasco says web applications and mobile devices have become the vehicle of choice for attacks. Employees using their personally-owned devices for work-related activities have increased security liabilities over which companies do not have control, representing added opportunities for providers.
Information security regulations by Latin American governments will also force end users to fortify their security capabilities, opening new avenues for service providers. The region’s healthy economic growth has attracted players from other regions to expand their businesses in Latin America, further enhancing the scope of the MSS market.
However, the perception that managed security solutions do not offer significant returns hampers market growth. The difficulty in calculating the potential losses of a foiled attack means that clients see the explicit costs and miss the implicit benefits of MSS. This affects firms’ decision to hire or continue security services and often companies, which have not yet been victims of attacks, fail to recognize the need for security services.
This reactive demand has led MSS providers to focus on the chief targets of cyber attacks, especially the application, mobile, and cloud segments. Basic services such as firewall and VPN will remain the most popular in the region, and penetration testing and assessment services will grow the fastest.
