Security providers are set to reap the rewards of the industrial Internet of Things, new research has predicted, although it warned them there is no easy answer to solving vulnerabilities.
The report from ABI Research said managed security service providers (MSSPs) will see a fivefold increase in revenues between now and 2021 to $11 billion.
It said while it will continue to make money from telematics, fleet management and video surveillance, industrial applications spanning the connected car, smart cities and utilities will become increasingly important.
Phil Sealy, Senior Analyst at ABI Research, said: “Security adoption will thrive across the industrial segment as manufacturers seek to enable new levels of efficiencies, while ensuring that they are not only providing continuous operation, but also supporting applications critical to health, safety, and life.
“In addition, secure Over the Air, or OTA, applications present a new and significant revenue opportunity for IoT MSSPs to offer digital upselling and upgrade opportunities.”
However, Sealy warned there is no one size fits all solution that will address all security concerns. He said the inability to provide one end-to-end solution will be good news for managed security vendors to plug the various gaps.
He predicted the “as a service” model would help companies such as Gemalto and G&D diversify into new markets.
Sealy added: “Although the monetisation opportunity may not yet be well understood within the consumer segment, the ability to add new features across the life cycle of a device should not be underestimated.
“Security will, in the future, form part of the purchase choice, directly driven by improved security education and a broader demand to protect digital assets in the same sense as users protect their physical assets today.
“For this reason, security service providers, although largely invisible today, may become the household names of tomorrow as IoT security moves from a requirement to a product differentiator.”