New Online Threats Accelerate Managed Security Services in LATAM

The Managed Security Services (MSS) market in Latin America is driven by industry, technical and economic factors. Companies are starting to understand the benefits that MSS can bring to their enterprise by allowing them to maintain a focus on their core business. And as security is becoming increasingly complex and expansive to be managed in-house, many companies are strongly considering outsourcing. Trends such as Cloud Computing, Mobility, Big Data and the Internet of Things are constantly changing the way companies do business and serving as a driver for the security market.

The mindset about security in Latin America is gradually changing, as companies are starting to realize that data stolen or accessed by a third party can cause significant issues, such as a loss of money and intellectual propriety.

More Must Be Done

Although this mindset is evolving, many companies still do not invest adequately in security. There is a lack of knowledge of what the companies need and what they should demand from managed security services providers (MSSPs). Additionally, the average budget for security is still a problem, as it is difficult to prove the return on investment (ROI) in security, and many companies believe that simple anti-virus and anti-spam software is sufficient for them to be protected.

In the Latin American landscape, the most common threats are:

• Botnets, a collection of compromised computers running malicious programs under a command and control infrastructure.
• Phishing, a form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards details, user IDs, and passwords by tricking the user into giving the attacker confidential information.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), which is an attack on a computer network designed to disrupt normal traffic by flooding the server with false requests.

Also, advanced persistent threats (APTs) are likely to become more popular. These attacks are already becoming more prevalent and are causing concerns over data loss, as well as reputational damage among enterprises.

However, the market is still demanding more basic services such as Security Asset Management and Monitoring, which consist in security asset maintenance and upgrades, as well as security policy management. According to our recent study, Analysis of the Latin American Managed Security Services Market, this segment represents 73.9 percent of the total market and it is projected to remain the main service in Latin America by 2019, with 70.3 percent.

The second most demanded service in Latin America, with a share of 14.3 percent, is risk and compliance management. This service is expected to grow as companies continue to struggle with compliance requirements. Threat Intelligence and Remediation reached a share of 9.1 percent, as this technology is highly complex, requires strong security knowledge, specialized labor force and labs to analyze threats and provide security against them. Finally, advanced and emerging managed security services are the least demanded in Latin America, as they are related to new trends such as mobile attacks.

With a share of 50.6 percent, Brazil is by far the largest revenue contributor, followed by Mexico with 19.7 percent, Andean Region with 15.3 percent, Southern Cone with 12.6 percent and Caribbean and Central America with 1.8 percent.

A Maturing Market

The MSS market in Latin America has been growing and becoming more mature every day. Frost & Sullivan’s research pointed that the MSS market in Latin America generated revenue of US$469.6 million in 2013. The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.6 percent from 2013 to 2019, to reach $771.6 million in 2019.

As already mentioned, it’s important to take into account that new technologies like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) are stimulating the MSS market. Custom malwares are being created specifically for mobile devices and are now used as a key component for attacks against both enterprises and government. As a result, these organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the risks of unprotected mobile devices in the workplace and they are looking for security solutions.

Without any doubt, the security as a service model is gaining more traction in Latin America, as companies are starting to have content and web applications on the Cloud and are gradually moving to more value added services. Big Data is also emerging as an important technology to prevent attacks as security analytics solutions can perform real time analysis to identify zero day attacks whenever they occur.

Finally, the Internet of Things is also expected to have an important role in driving the MSS market, as every device connected to the internet will become liable to being hacked into and it will be necessary to have security services to protect the data while it is transferred to other connected devices.