Mumbai: The year 2016 saw an exponential growth in targeted and state sponsored attacks. The ransomware attacks remained the top concern of IT leaders throughout the year. Considering the complexity of threat landscape, many companies are turning to partners for managed security services to handle the challenging responsibility of mitigating cyber risks. Customers cannot handle the security architecture in their respective organization on their own. Similarly, vendors cannot target the specific industry segment without the market insights and pain points of that particular organization. Partners are the win win for both who can fill the gap in the security lines. But to enable that they need to consider the following major trends in the security domain in 2017.
Crime Crime Syndicates To Become Bigger
Cyber-crime syndicates are not only going to become bigger and organized, but they are also going to be more sophisticated in their massive data breach launches in 2017. Hence, it is inevitable for enterprises to match the skills and ability of new age cyber criminals in order to counter their attacks. Like CISOs and CIOs, it is also a big challenge for security partners and managed security solution providers (MSSPs) to constantly keep themselves updated and upgraded on the emerging technologies and new concept in the security field.
Also, considering the scale and complexity of the current cyber security landscape, partners would explore to collaborate with multiple security vendors instead of being loyal to only one company in order to offer most comprehensive package of security solutions to end customers.
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Paradigm Shift In Channel IT Spending
Earlier, security used to constitute a very little share in the entire budget of an enterprise. The security spending has substantially risen in recent years as most of the enterprises today consider security a key component of organizations’ IT infrastructure. This is beneficial for partners as vendors will have a deeper engagement with partners in terms of training and support.
Similarly, strong product portfolio and robust sales support will be most critical aspects for channel partners in 2017. Vendors will not want to loose on these two fronts because in a highly flooded security market, partners handling large accounts and strategic firms always emphasis on the products and vendor support.
Uptick In Data Recovery And Security
For many, cyber security is largely caters to perimeter security or simply protecting the endpoints that transfer data. Today, data has emerged as the most important asset of any organization. The surge in the ransomware attacks in the last 2 years has outlined the importance of data backup and recovery. Similarly, a robust disaster recovery plan is a must to safeguard the critical data from any uncertain incidents.
According to the recent survey by Evolve IP MSPs could be instrumental in planning and executing the DR plan in the organization. DRaaS is emerging as a revenue generating field for channel partners and many MSPs are already making their inroads in this space. Hence, partners having expertise in the data management space are going to drive the data management strategies of companies in a big way in 2017.
Also Read: MSSPs To Gain Amidst Rising High Profile Cyber Attacks
IoT Security To Become Mainstream
According to the MarketsandMarkets forecasts the Internet of Things market size to grow from USD 157.05 Billion in 2016 to USD 661.74 Billion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 33.3 percent. The latest report by NASSCOM reveals that Indian IoT market is set to grow to USD 15 billion by 2020 from the current USD 5.6 billion. With an exponential growth in connected devices, Internet Of Things (IoT) will become mainstream in 2017.
Gartner too estimates there are 6.4 billion connected gadgets out there, and each of those devices has the potential to generate volumes of DDoS traffic. Hence, the rising DDoS and other kinds of attacks on IoT devices will compel the CIOs to tighten security layers around the IoT ecosystem. Partners are going to play a very significant role in big IoT automation projects across the industry domain in 2017.
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Cloud Migration To Rise
Enterprises across the verticals will be shifting their work loads on cloud platforms in a big way in 2017 and Hybrid cloud and SaaS will be the fasted growing segments in the cloud business. Partners will be seen busy in facilitating a seamless migration of customers’ applications on the suitable cloud platforms. While cloud makes it optimize the resources in a best possible way and brings a higher level of efficiency in the business operations, the biggest issues will still be security, management and compliance.
Experts believe that partners can play a role of trusted advisers to customers in the migration process. However, to enable that it is essential to have a sufficient in-house skills and domain expertise. Partners will require to their focus to micro components of cloud computing in order to deliver higher value to their customers.
Cyber Security Aware To Become Critical
This year, we may see a significant uptick in the threat landscape, increasing the security burden for many organizations. Insider threats will continue to haunt organizations across the sectors. Hence, awareness will be a key factor in tackling advanced and sophisticated cyber threats. Partners are very proactive in educating end users on cyber security and they will continue to leverage on digital technologies for customers educations.