London, United Kingdom - 17 Nov 2015

In a recent market study conducted by ABI Research , a leader in technology market research, data trends show that the global threat and Vulnerability Management (VM) market is expected to grow from US$5.3 billion in 2015 to $8.6 billion in 2020. The report aims to uncover industry implications behind newly discovered security vulnerabilities while also assessing threat and VM solutions and their role in overall enterprise security.

Read ABI Research’s Threat and Vulnerability Management report.

“Each day, organizations are deluged with warnings about newly discovered security vulnerabilities,” says Monolina Sen, Senior Analyst in Digital Security at ABI Research. “While well-known security flaws, such as Heartbleed, affected industries globally, lesser-known vulnerabilities have just as much impact on critical systems in a particular enterprise.”

Sen further reports that the increasing use of next generation technologies, like cloud computing and big data, are bound to introduce new vulnerabilities. According to the market study, SaaS (software as a service) providers have the highest number of vulnerabilities on average, followed by the financial services industry.

Additionally, the report identifies two key factors that led to the demand for threat and VM solutions:

Impact of Design Flaws and Weaknesses : These affect a software vendor’s reputation, as well as a supplier’s bottom line, as frequent patches represent a major financial burden.

Government and Industry Regulation Mandates : Groups such as HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability)/HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health), PCI DSS (PCI Data Security Standard) and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) mandate rigorous VM practices.

“VM is key to attaining risk management goals,” continues Sen. “It provides policy and compliance context, and it mines the network for vulnerability information, remediation opportunities, and ultimately, provides a comprehensive view of enterprise risk.”

The VM market covers a wide area of solutions that function as the backbone of the security organization. The ideal VM solution would include capabilities for asset management, vulnerability assessment, configuration management, patch management, remediation, reporting and monitoring. It would also integrate well with third-party technologies. Leading vendors providing VM solutions include Tenable Network Security, Qualys, Core Security, IBM, Rapid7, AlienVault, Tripwire, Skybox Security, HP, Intel Security, EMC, Symantec, Secunia and more.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Cybersecurity Technologies Research Service, which includes research reports, market data, insights, and competitive assessments.