Dive Brief:
- Enterprise spending on OT cybersecurity will grow almost 70% from 2023 to $21.6 billion globally by 2028, according to a Thursday report by ABI Research. The sector generated $12.75 billion in 2023, the firm said.
- “Attacks and regulation are driving spending,” Michael Amiri, senior analyst at ABI Research, said via email
- More than half of OT cybersecurity spending will flow to network security and segmentation. “Segmentation is a crucial element in maintaining OT cybersecurity and operational continuity in industrial contexts,” capturing approximately 27% of overall spending through the five-year period, Amiri said.
Dive Insight:
The OT cybersecurity industry is expected to grow more than 9% annually to reach $21.6 billion by 2028, according to ABI Research.
The projected increase in OT cybersecurity spending follows a wave of escalating attacks targeting internet-exposed devices at industrial sites for drinking water, energy, agriculture, manufacturing and other sectors.
Attackers have multiple incentives to target OT. Operational continuity is critical and the sector is historically unprepared with weaker defenses, which makes it easier to attack and more likely to pay extortion demands, according to Amiri.
Rising cyber risk and increased connectivity requirements in the industrial sector could push enterprises to allocate more of their overall IT spending to OT and IoT, eventually surpassing IT spending, ABI Research found.
“OT has been historically a very small slice of the pie compared with overall IT spending. This is definitely going to change,” Amiri said.
Industrial operators that deploy remote-access control access mechanisms for their OT environments are among the top spenders. Sectors fueling OT cybersecurity spending include: mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction, utilities and manufacturing.
