The rapid adoption of SoCloMo is shifting the focus of security organisations from endpoint security to network security; the market pegged at $266 million in 2014, claims almost 28 percent of the total enterprise security market in India.
Organizations are now changing their focus from endpoint security to 
network security. The adoption of SoCloMo (social media, cloud computing and mobility) is breaking open the rigid boundaries of enterprise IT from a controlled environment to a situation where CIOs have the unenviable task of securing data distributed across cloud, mobile and social platforms.
According to research firm Gartner, the security solutions market in India is expected to grow from $882 million in 2013 to $953 million in 2014, and cross $1.06 billion in 2015. “Of this, the network security market, according to Frost & Sullivan, is pegged at $266 million in 2014; a growth of about 14 percent compared to the previous year. It is expected to double and reach $526 million by 2020,” says Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India and SAARC, Fortinet.
According to RS Market Research Solutions, large proportion (44.3 percent) of the network security market is contributed by enterprises, with the government and education segments contributing 32.5 percent, small businesses 15 percent and the mid-market customers adding 8.2 percent and Data from Cisco’s Annual Security report 2013 indicates that contrary to the global spam volumes which have reduced by 18 percent during the last year, India has seen an escalation in the level of malicious spam. According to CERT-In, an estimated 14,392 websites were hacked in 2012 till October.
“Money and spying are the two motivators for cyber attacks targeting Web servers. Network security acts as a gateway between the user and the applications. Customers are now realizing the adversities caused by negligence on network security, hence we are seeing large traction in this space,” says Venu Gopal Peruri, Managing Director, Meta Infotech.
Moreover, the Indian government updated its IPv6 roadmap which details some pilot projects and a new set of deliverables for total transition to IPv6 by 2017. Since IPv6 requires up gradation of the network infrastructure, security has become a major concern. “The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, evolution of IPv6-oriented technologies, government initiatives to push transition to IPv6, YoY explosive growth of mobile devices, and the emergence of the Internet of Things – all these will boost network security in a big way,” forecasts Ambarish Deshpande, Managing Director, India Sales, Blue Coat Systems.
ACPL, Delhi, has a large network security practice that exceeds $10 million, and caters to large customers from insurance, telecom, manufacturing, IT/ITES and education. According to the CEO, Vishal Bindra,“Data privacy and the need to adhere to regulatory compliances specially for our customers in the pharma and manufacturing segments, or multi group companies which have adopted SaaS, are forcing them to look at network security in a holistic .” The company sees almost 60% of their total revenues coming only from Network security is growing at a rate of about 20-25 percent. . “The renewal comes after 3-5 years and that’s a substantial business for us,” he adds.
With new and emerging external and internal threats, technologies like Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), Network Access Control (NAC), Intrusion Detection and Prevention, and Unified Threat Management (UTM) are the hot cakes of network security market.
NGFW to take the lead
Next Generation FireWall (NGFW) is an integrated network platform comprising in-line deep packet inspection (DPI) firewall, intrusion prevention system, application inspection and control, SSL/SSH inspection, website filtering, and QoS or bandwidth management to protect against new and sophisticated attacks.
The segment is pegged at around $250 million in APAC. Pradhan of McAfee says the worldwide NGFW market is expected to grow from $500 million in 2012 to $4.6 billion by 2016. “NGFW as a concept completely meets the requirements of large enterprises. They are looking for solutions for IP fragmentation, TCP stream segmentation, RPC fragmentation, URL obfuscation, HTML evasion and FTP evasion, so this is a large opportunity for partners.”
He adds that as per industry estimates, the NGFW market in India has grown 17 percent YoY and will soon make up almost 50 percent of the security market in India NGFW has been gaining a lot of traction among small and medium businesses. Enterprises which are undergoing refresh cycles or re-architecting their security infrastructure are also evaluating and adopting NGFW.
The main reason this move is happening is because in traditional firewalls in enterprise security primarily focus on limiting access based on ports and protocols. With more applications using fewer ports, and protocols like HTTP and SSL, the traditional firewalls are providing limited security value.
Says Amit Singh, Country Head, Dell Sonicwall, “NGFW addresses this shortfall by providing application visibility and adding user context. The threat landscape has changed – from exploiting servers to exploiting desktop-based applications. This happens when employees visit malicious sites and open infected documents that come through email. NGFW addresses this threat by adding IPS which does deep packet inspection.”
According to many of the security channel partners, the trend toward NGFW is gradually boiling up. “The demand is coming from large enterprises which cannot afford to have disruptions from newer attacks because downtime can kill millions of dollars. NGFW provides advanced protection through complete visibility and reporting till layer 7, and also does not hamper the current work,” says Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and Group CEO, Greyhound Research.
Customers using traditional firewalls are realizing that evasive techniques used by malwares go undetected. “Besides, most firewalls have performance issues when at full capacity and most of the features offered are only modules compared to best-of-the-breed solutions. New exploits have rendered the traditional firewall as non-reactive, and have successfully attacked operating systems, applications and databases in client sites,” details Ronny Ferrao, COO, Essen Vision.
Concurs Ashok Kumar, MD and CEO of RAH Infotech, “The changes in the threat landscape and the ever-increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies, are increasingly challenging traditional firewalls to evolve. Secondly, organizations in the BFSI, manufacturing, IT-ITeS and PSU segments, as well as MSPs, are seeking clarity on scanning, application intelligence, performance, manageability and reporting. These are definite opportunities for partners.”
Agrees Bindra of ACPL, “We have executed three large projects in the last 12 months. Organizations which have large workforce are adopting this technology; including manufacturing, IT/ITES and financial institutes.”
Adds Venu Gopal, Meta Infotech. “We are seeing an increasing demand for NGFW from the retail, education, e-commerce and hospitality segments. Enterprises are providing their employees access to social networking, but have blocked the chat and games features. Also, industries which have high-availability as an important criterion, are looking at NGFW.”
Meta Infotech has deployed NGFW for HDFC Bank and AICT, and recently bagged a large contract from ICICI Bank.
Delhi-based Spark Technologies has done crisp business on NGFW and is targeting Rs 10 crore from NGFW this year. “We have already completed upgrade projects worth Rs 5 crore for the home ministry, and have five upcoming projects in AIIMS and Air India. We have also deployed smaller upgrade projects with deal size averaging Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh. Overall, we have sold close to 500 units in government and mid size corporate in the last 12 months,” states S. Nautiyal Spark Technologies, Managing Director.
Intrusion detection and prevention
Today’s threat landscape includes increasingly sophisticated, highly targeted attacks (or Advanced Persistent Threats) designed specifically to breach an individual or an organization. Use of traditional technologies—firewall segmentation, IPS and anti-malware strong in proactive detection, malicious application and Website filtering, command and control blocking, SSL inspection and more—have a role to play in hardening defences. However, at some point a really determined attacker is likely to get through, and even a single compromise can be costly. “Hence, many organizations are looking at advanced or specialty threat detection solutions, including sandboxing, to complement traditional defences and speed identification and response ,” adds Maurya of Fortinet.
According to industry estimates the intrusion detection and prevention systems market in India has grown by 14 percent YoY, says Pradhan of McAfee. “The availability of high performance integrated appliance with next generation intrusion prevention systems (NIPS) will induce long term growth especially in the SMB space. Industry research predicts that NIPS will remain a separate market focused on the needs of large enterprises such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, energy, and government. NIPS with functionalities including advanced threat defence, accurate behavioural analysis, and context and content capability are already being introduced and will help keep the market afloat.”
With this increasing awareness over the last few quarters, Frost & Sullivan pegged the projected market for IDS/IPS solutions in India at $40 million by end of 2014. Partners are seeing large adoption from customers ranging from mid-market to enterprises. “Customers with in-house data centres are primarily adopting the intrusion detection and prevention systems. Clients with multiple applications hosted over the intranet and the cloud, as well as clients with critical business applications and for whom compliance is a major driver, are the major adopters. We have executed large number projects for our customers from BFSI to manufacturing verticals,” shares Ferrao.
Adds Vivek Gupta, President, Hitachi Micro Clinic Systems, “We have almost 100 plus customers in this space, mainly from BFSI and IT/ITES segments. We might have sold more than 300 units in the last 12 months.”
Evolving UTM
UTMs are commonly referred to as multifunction security appliances, capable of providing a multitude of integrated security services, such as firewall, IPS, VPN, web content filtering, data loss prevention and more. However, there is an emerging trend where UTM appliances are extending their security policy enforcement to include and integrate management functionality of WLAN, VoIP, IP-based cameras and more.
According to a recent IDC report, the UTM market is approximately $2.5 billion and growing at 20 percent per annum. According to IDC, the India UTM market was worth $86.52 million in 2013, which represents a YoY growth of 22.6 percent from 2012. However, data for current year is not available.
“By integrating the flexibility of UTM appliances, wireless access points, wireless WAN extender and switching products, businesses can simplify their complex networks, improve management and ensure seamless policy enforcement. They can aggressively pursue new business opportunities and reduce costs while enjoying all the benefits of high-performance network security,” explains Maurya of Fortinet.
“Although UTM has become a run-of-a-mill product, it represents the largest opportunity for partners with large adoption from SMBs and mid-market organizations. We sell around 3-4 UTMs in a single day. It is the largest selling component seeing high growth in mid-market,” adds ACPL.
Ferrao of Essen Vision highlights that UTMs have always been the first choice for mid market and SMB customers as it offers a better TCO and ROI in terms of the features and benefits it offer. “Though it has its own limitations in terms of real benefits for all the features and performances, UTM’s adoption is ever increasing. The primary reason is better manageability as s single device handles all the required functions of antivirus, IPS/IDS and even Web filtering,” he says.
NAC to gain momentum
Network Access Control is yet another emerging opportunity for channel partners who cater to large enterprise customers in BFSI. NAC is primarily being driven by compliance and the market players see the BFSI vertical as the primary adopters. Since it is a niche area with very few OEMs offering the right solution, it is still an expensive area for clients to invest.
NAC is primarily being driven by compliance and we see the BFSI as the primary adopters. Since it is a niche area with very few OEMs offering the right solution it is still an expensive area for clients to invest.
“A mandate from RBI to all nationalized banks, that they need to have an additional layer of security and visibility plus control over end points, has prompted them to think and opt for NAC solutions. We are very strongly promoting NAC solutions within our customer base. In fact, we have had success with 8-10 large enterprise customers in the last 12 months,” adds Ashok Kumar.
Bindra of ACPL is also seeing NAC solutions picking up among the customers. The company executed 3-4 NAC projects last year and has completed 7-8 projects in 2014.
Conclusion
Technologies like NGFW, Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems, UTM and NAC are all blocking technologies, which will continue creating larger opportunities for partners.
However, the next wave of security investments from 2015-2020 will be in technologies which will identify that breach has happened. “We need to move beyond threat arena. If you accept the fact that you are going to be breached than you will start looking at security in a different manner. These technologies surely are helpful but there are threats which will not be blocked by any of these technologies, hence the next phase of growth will be on post breach technologies,” opines Deshpande of Blue Coat.
VPN (Virtual Private Networks)
In the Indian telecom sector, VPN is one of the largest revenue generating products and lately it has been witnessing a lot of traction from the SMEs as well. This in turn has motivated market participants to come out with innovative products focusing on end-user requirements like low bandwidth.
In India many large enterprises have been using IP VPNs for long and have been very successful in running mission critical applications. Another trend seen in India is that enterprises are also increasingly looking at connecting their value chain partners and mobile workforce, particularly in industries like FMCG.
Intrusion Prevention System (IDS/IPS)
The major drivers for the intrusion detection system market are the continuous sophistication of the cyber attacks, security threats and hacking attempts increasing governmental pressure on security compliance and regulations, and increasing spending on IT security solutions and services. Driven by these factors IDS/IPS market is evolving and gaining maturity and now moving toward its advanced stage which is the “Next Generation IDS/IPS”.
NAC (Network access control)
The early adopters of access control systems in India were IT and BFSI segments; however, in the recent day’s government, defence, transportation as well as power and energy sectors have started adopting the technology and tremendous growth can be expected in these sectors.
SMBs Gaining Momentum
The network security market for small and medium businesses (SMBs, companies with less than 999 employees) in India has shown a positive growth trend.
According to research firm AMI Partners, the SMB segment has spent nearly $45 million in 2012 on network security appliances including unified threat management (UTM), network firewalls and VPN solutions.
SMBs are not lagging behind the large enterprises in network security spends, AMI said, in its report titled: “2013 India Network Security Appliance Market Landscape.”
Emerging wireless LAN-based technologies such as 3G, WiMAX, and Wi-Fi hotspots enhance the need for data security. “It is also important to mention that larger SMBs are now transmitting more critical applications over their networks,” said Somnath Das, Manager, Research, AMI.
Another key trend is the shift toward convergence. By adopting UTM, a typical SMB can obtain enterprise level network protection and rapidly adapt itself to reduce the adverse effects of newly-evolving threats emanating from sources such as Web 2.0, VoIP, streaming media, IM, P2P, etc.
Furthermore, UTM offers lower TCO which makes it affordable for SMBs. Currently, SMBs contribute nearly one-third of the UTM market revenue of all India businesses.
“The UTM market has seen a healthy growth rate in the last 3 years. It is expected that the India SMB UTM market will continue to gain traction in the next two to three years with double-digit annual growth rates,” he said.
The SMBs are likely to be attracted by a versatile and multi-functional all-in-one-box of application including security features such as endpoint, Web and mail gateway. “A key reason that Indian SMBs prefer this type of technology is lack of internal IT management. Just over a quarter of Indian SMBs employ a full-time, dedicated internal IT professional,” Das said.
He added that vendors are also competing to penetrate the lucrative market and are launching innovative products at competitive price points. “Even vendors who are strongly established in the enterprise segment have introduced products aimed at customers with less than 25 users. The market has also witnessed the emergence of local players offering products at par with global standards. These vendors have built their strength in the SMB space through strong research and development and continuous innovations.”
Share and Enjoy
• Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • LinkedIn • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS
The post Emerging Enterprise Technologies Driving Shift from Endpoint to Network Security appeared first on IT News | IT Reseller News | latest IT News | Indian Computer News | India Technology News.