Building a Secure India

Today, in pursuit of panacea to their security
requirements, several enterprises are looking
towards multiple layers of security to keep the attackers out, keep confidential information in and manage security efficiently through standardization, workflow and automation. In spite of the prevalence of such dangerous threats, both small and large companies are bringing in more resources to effectively handle security issues on their own, and consequently, the demand for specialized security solutions is rising.

The security software market continues to benefit from prioritization and demands related to compliance requirements, as well as the need to keep up with ever-increasing sophistication and volume in the threat landscape. The Indian security market witnessed significant growth in 2010. It has been growing rapidly and Gartner is forecasting a CAGR of 16.4 percent for the Indian security market until 2013, after clocking a projected growth of more than 20 percent. According to Gartner, the endpoint protection platform (enterprise) market is the security software segment, with revenue on pace to reach $3 billion in 2010, up from $2.9 billion in 2009. The network security market segment this year has witnessed a growth of 21.6 percent taking the overall Indian network security revenue to Rs 900 crore. Frost & Sullivan expects a CAGR of 7.5 percent from 2009 to 2015, to gross revenues of just over Rs 14,696.08 crore by end-2015, propelled by demand from BFSI and telecom sectors.

Also, according to IDC, it is predicted that by 2011, UTM will be the largest single market with a CAGR of 26.2 percent and is predicted to have a total available market (TAM) of $3.1 billion by 2011. According to analysts reports, only the India market for UTM appliances in 2009 stood at $42.25 million, and $58 million in 2010 and is poised to keep growing at a steady CAGR of 30 percent over the next three to four years.

The focus of IT security has shifted from single-point solutions, such as anti-virus software, to more holistic suite solutions such as intrusion prevention systems and endpoint security solutions. “The major concern for businesses is data loss, either through internal data leaks or malware. It is a serious issue for small businesses, especially as they become more aware of their attractiveness to cyber criminals," commented Amit Nath, Country Manager-India and SAARC, Trend Micro. Security solutions will increasingly include content-aware capabilities, which will enable the system to detect which data is critical and sensitive and requires greater levels of protection. One example of this is content-aware data loss protection software, which includes content detection capabilities.

“Although, anti-virus, anti-spyware and other signature-based protection measures were sufficient in the past, businesses now need proactive security that can protect against zero-day attacks and unknown threats,” said Shantanu Ghosh, VP-India Product Operations, Symantec. Security services outsourcing is also expected to gain momentum in the Indian market. Besides, fraud management solutions would be adopted by most banks, managed endpoint security services are seen as an emerging trend, and IAM solutions and services are also seeing an uptick in demand.

While security threats are bound to grow further, layered security and converged security solutions are likely to gain traction. Ghosh added that every organization needs comprehensive protection of business interactions, critical information, and IT infrastructure through three layers. The first layer addresses IT Policy Management. All large and publicly traded companies have IT and security policies they need to enforce. Policies are critical because they provide the basis for deciding what type of information needs to be protected, in what manner, at what cost, who has access to what information, and how long specific types of information should be retained. The second layer addresses Information Risk Management (IRM) to protect the information. Leveraging the policies established in the previous layer, IRM combines threat protection and information control enabling organizations to keep the bad things out (information security), to keep the important things in (data loss prevention), and to manage, retain and find that information (e-discovery).

“With the increase in the number and mobility of endpoints, security is top-of-mind for businesses. Hence, network security has become an explosively important factor with the combined growth of Internet, the businesses that depend on it, and the people that attempt to break their way in,” opined Ghosh.
Also, speaking further on more technological advancements in the security market in India, Tushar Sighat, VP-Operations, Cyberoam said, “The UTM market in India is currently at $58 million growing fastest at 25-30 percent on a YoY basis. Indian enterprises are fully geared up to deploy UTMs. For them, UTMs are not just cost effective, but also clutter-free, which is the need of the hour as the geographical boundaries are diminishing and networks are spanning across the globe.”

Virtualization technologies have already been incorporated in UTM devices, enabling enterprises to assign different virtual UTM devices to network segments or user groups. Recently, Trend Micro has rolled out virtualization-aware endpoint security offering-Trend Micro OfficeScan 10.5 for medium businesses and enterprises. The other two products that the company has introduced are Titanium 2011-Maximum Security product for consumers and Worry Free Business Security 7 for SMBs.

SPs in the race too

Not only the vendors who are ruling the security market in India, also the solution and service providers like Allied Digital Services, are betting big in this market. Recently, ADSL has entered into a partnership with Intel Capital which invested Rs 32 crore to hold 2.8 percent stake in ADSL. Through this strategic deal, Allied Digital will be able to enhance its offerings in the remote management services and the cloud-based services.

“Due to economic slowdown, organizations were closely monitoring capital expenditure and hence managed services such as Managed Intrusion Prevention Services, Managed SSL Service saw heavy demand. By enabling global large and medium enterprises to effectively secure its IT infrastructure, we witnessed a growth of 31 percent in the APAC region,” said Bimal Raj, Executive Director and CEO, Allied Digital Services. He added that the Managed Services allow organizations to match benefits to costs with very little upfront investment. Delivery of these solutions also became easier due to the adoption of private and public cloud.

Some of the major deployments of Allied Digital Services have been a reputed financial firm that chose Allied Digital, on the strength of their information security services, to provide 24x7 information security surveillance service. Allied Digital deployed e-Cop Event Manager (a component of Allied Digital's Security Operating Center-SOC ) in the primary and disaster recovery centers to capture the security events real time from security devices deployed at strategic locations. The normalized security events were sent to Allied Digital's SOC where its security analysts monitored the events, in real-time 24x7. Also, a California-based bank has chosen Allied Digital to build two Web-enabled central data repositories for asset management and project management. These systems enable the bank immediate reporting, project status and assets to be ordered and installed per the specific site survey data gathering. “We have recently closed security monitoring engagements with two major financial services organizations in Australia and United States. Apart from that, we have been also working on government projects in India and abroad deploying various security solutions,” said Raj.

According to ADSL, cloud computing has been the biggest game changer for the security industry. Organizations have to move their focus from implementing internal controls to implementing controls over the cloud. This shift has made organization a lot more inclined towards outsourcing security functions within their organization to managed security service providers. “We have also been exclusive partners to LANDesk for delivering managed endpoint security services over the cloud. We have over 200,000 seats under management from our Network Operations Center for managed endpoint security services, which is the first for any India service provider,” said Raj. Talking about the future business prospects for Allied Digital Services, Raj said, “We foresee managed security services market growing beyond 30 percent and security software and appliance market grow at over 15 percent in the coming year. Also the adoption of public cloud will increase use of Security-as-a-Service as it provides an independent security control plane to monitor business use of public cloud services. And, keeping this in mind, we see increased demand from BFSI sector based on compliance requirements and from government sectors based on increased threats due to cyber terrorism.”

Mumbai-based Network Techlab is another solution provider which generates 25 percent of its revenue from Internet security. Also, the company is known in the IT consultancy and services provider segment. The company has been catering to the needs of SMBs and large organizations for the past 10 years. Their aim is to provide technology-driven business solutions that meet the strategic objectives of clients.

It is a major enterprise business partner for Emerson and a corporate business general partner Canon. “With 80 percent of its revenues surfacing from the price-conscious SMB market segment, we are keenly focused on this segment,” opined Haresh Gada, Director, Network Techlab. The company's performance in this space has been going very steadily, as it provides an end-to-end offering in the network security space. Sharing its major success story, Gada said, "We have deployed state of art 6500 NSA Sonicwall Firewall in High Availability for Prabhudas Liladhar Stock Broking Ltd. We are growing at a steady pace of 25 to 30 percent per year. This is our biggest achievement.”

Also, Sunil Kripalani, VP-Global Sales and Marketing, eScan, is of the view that the current major technological trend is adoption of security solutions in the SOHO and SMB segment, apart from the cloud-based solutions by enterprises. Some of the company's recent deployments are in the BFSI segments, educational institutes and manufacturing segments.

With the emerging technological trends and mobility such as netbooks, network access from Wi-Fi spots, social networking etc, the threat landscape also increases proportionately with malicious intentions. Hence, the emerging trends in security solutions across all business or verticals will be major growth area. Apart from this, the increasing sales of laptops and netbooks will also enable the SOHO users to adopt original solution, hence one of the major growth are is the SOHO segment. “Though security solutions are more vertical independent, among all the BFSI, education and manufacturing sectors are the major contributors to our growth. We see the BFSI, education, manufacturing and healthcare verticals would be the drivers in the coming year. We will be focusing more on these sectors for revenue growth,” said Kripalani.

Mumbai-based Wysetek System Technologies, which draws 20 percent of its revenue from the secure access segment, is still striving to play big in the space. Cherian Thomas, Director, Wysetek said, “Our company has been observing a steady growth on account of being associated with the vendors. Thomas believes that it is significant to grow along with the brand and to have trust, which will drive better business.” Recently, the company has bagged a success story with its client which is a premium travel company, which employs over 1,400 professionals, headquartered in India with worldwide operations. In order to fulfill their needs to manage enterprise level security at their global datacenter located at Mumbai; the customer has deployed the Check Point UTM Appliance with Software Blade Architecture with the help of Wysetek Technologies, which is in alliance with Check Point. And, the customers then managed to achieve enterprise class firewall features, Intrusion Prevention System, Virtual Private Network (VPN) and content filtering system. Check Point also enabled them to adhere to their various compliance requirements.

Further talking about the technological trends that will impact the growth of the security market in India, Thomas said, “In recent years, we have seen growing Internet dependence among organizations of all sizes in India. Almost all companies today use Web-based processes in storing, accessing and transmitting data. Newer technologies such as virtualization, unified communications, and cloud computing are increasingly being adopted because they help reduce costs while addressing system manageability issues.”

The Champ

After having done a detailed analysis on the geographical presence, current engagements and success stories of the solution providers in the Indian security market, it is certainly evident that Allied Digital Services holds a credible position in the market. Riding high, the company looks forward to enter into new ventures and acquisitions. Leveraging more on the business and technology opportunities, Allied Digital Services has well mapped out plans to expand its consumer base and market capitalization in the growing security space.

Sikta Samantaray
(siktas@cybermedia.co.in)