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The digitisation of critical infrastructures has provided many benefits, but along the way has brought with it a batch of inevitable risks and, in the view of ABI Research, the always-on nature of cloud connectivity has only served to raise the stakes.
The company sees, disruption and destruction through malicious online activities are the new reality: cyber-espionage, cyber-crime, and cyber-terrorism. To be fair, there are also those who suggest that company staff, working to the classic cockup theory `rules’, are much more likely to be the main proponents of cyber-disaster.
ABI Research’s study of this area suggest that the protection of critical infrastructure has become the most immediate primary concern for nation states. It takes the pessimistic view that the public revelation of wide-spread state-sponsored cyber-espionage presages an era of information and cyber warfare on a global scale between countries, political groups, hacktivists, organised crime syndicates, and civilian society – in short, to anyone with access to an Internet-connected device.
On this basis, it estimates that cyber security spending for critical infrastructure will hit $46 billion globally by the end of 2013, as the focus on cyber security becomes an imperative. It suggests that much of this business will come from areas of business that are still in `catch-up’ mode. While industries like the financial sector have had cyber-defense and security mechanisms in place for some time others, such as energy and healthcare, are only just starting to implement measures.
The company’s researches suggest that increased spending over the next five years will be driven by a growing number of policies and procedures in education, training, research and development, awareness programs, standardisation work, and co-operative frameworks, among other projects. It has produced a report on `Critical Infrastructure Security’ as part of its Cyber Security Research Service, which breaks down estimates of future spending for eight vertical market sectors: Defence, Energy, Financial, Healthcare, ICT, Public Security, Transport, and Water and Waste Management. The data is split by region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa), by sector (private/public) and by type (product/service).
