IT Security

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The cybersecurity market is continuing its stratospheric growth and hurtling towards the trillion-dollar mark in 2020. In 2004, the global cybersecurity market was worth $3.5 billion. The cybersecurity market grew by roughly 35X over the next 13 years. 

While all other tech sectors are driven by reducing inefficiencies and increasing productivity, Cybercrime drives cybersecurity spending. The unprecedented cybercriminal activity we are witnessing is generating so much cyber spending; it's become nearly impossible for analysts to track accurately. Before the Coronavirus Pandemic, analysts anticipated a 12-15 per cent year-over-year cybersecurity market growth through 2021.

IT analyst forecasts are unable to keep pace with the dramatic rise in Cybercrime, the ransomware epidemic, the refocusing of malware from PCs and laptops to smartphones and mobile devices, the deployment of billions of under-protected Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the legions of hackers-for-hire, and the more sophisticated cyberattacks launching at businesses, governments, educational institutions, and consumers globally.

However, with the rise of the Pandemic, all business has moved to virtual and on the cloud. EasyJet is the latest company to have come under attack from hackers. They compromised nine million customer accounts. Chinese hackers are also actively Exploiting a Windows Bug in Microsoft Windows. Every version of Windows has a security flaw that attackers discovered before Microsoft did, and the company acknowledged this week that it's been selectively exploited.

Cyber-attacks have increased by 600% during the Pandemic. 

This rate of attack is the new normal and one of the drivers behind the exponential growth in the Cybersecurity sector in 2020. Covid-19 has been a ‘phisherman’s’ friend. 

Millions of professionals are at home and online, adjusting to new routines and anxious about their jobs. That makes them perfect marks: apt to click on an email that purports to be from their boss or a supplier asking for payment. Law-enforcement officials in many countries have reported a rise in cybercrime since the pandemic started.

But according to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, not all such attacks come from gangs or individuals aiming for immediate financial gain. On May 13th those agencies warned that cyber-actors affiliated with China were trying to steal covid-related data and intellectual property. China is not the only worry.

Russian hackers may probe for weaknesses in American electoral systems; Iranians have targeted an American drugmaker; North Koreans have gone after cryptocurrency stores.

Download my 15 page investment report with suggestions on the specific companies to invest in, and in which sectors within the Cybersecurity landscape, that they sit.