The researchers expect that information security spending will grow 2.4% reaching $123.8 billion in 2020 (see Table 1). This is down from the 8.7% growth Gartner projected in its December 2019 forecast update. The coronavirus pandemic is driving short-term demand in areas such as cloud adoption, remote worker technologies and cost saving measures.

“Like other segments of IT, we expect security will be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 crisis,” said Lawrence Pingree, managing vice president at Gartner. “Overall we expect a pause and a reduction of growth in both security software and services during 2020.”

“However, there are a few factors in favour of some security market segments, such as cloud-based offerings and subscriptions, being propped up by demand or delivery model. Some security spending will not be discretionary and the positive trends cannot be ignored,” he said.

The ongoing shift to a cloud-based delivery model makes the security market somewhat more resilient to a downturn, with an average penetration of 12% of overall security deployments cloud-based in 2019, according to Gartner research. Cloud-based delivery models have reached well above 50% of the deployments in markets such as secure email and web gateways.

Networking security equipment including firewall equipment and intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) will be most severely impacted by spending cuts this year, according to the analysts at Gartner. Consumer spending on security software is also forecast to decline in 2020.

Gartner's new reports “Forecast: Information Security and Risk Management, Worldwide, 2018-2024, 1Q20 Update” and “Forecast Alert: Impact of COVID-19 on the Information Security Software and Services Markets,” cover the markets in detail.

The company is also offering information on how to lead organisations through the disruption of coronavirus in the Gartner coronavirus resource centre, a collection of complimentary Gartner research and webinars to help organisations respond, manage and prepare for the rapid spread and global impact of COVID-19.