As security threats get more severe and complex, the overall security software market is forecasted to grow 17.5 percent to US$1.674 billion in 2011 compared to 2010.

Although Identity and Access Management (IAM) is still in the development stage, IDC foresees its role to become more crucial in the future IT environment.

According to the latest IDC Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region Semiannual Security Software Tracker, IAM achieved the highest year-on-year (YoY) growth rate of 32 percent.

With the increasing popularity of virtualization and mobile devices identity protection is becoming the prerequisite requirement for communication across the boundaries.

IDC believes that this will open more loopholes in popular smart phone and surging tablet applications arena, which will present a severe challenge and threat to the business environment.

These new threats will compel IT management to regulate the use of applications on personal devices within corporation networks, as security threats embedded within an application can bypass most of the security gateways if it is run after entering the company network.

“Security threats are becoming more tenacious and organized. We expect companies to continue to invest and install the latest detecting and defending tools to protect their assets. Thus, the overall security software market will continue to experience a decent growth despite the signs of economic slowdown,” said Marco Lam, Market Analyst of IDC Asia/Pacific Software Research.

The Semiannual Security Software Tracker showed that all the security software functional markets registered a double-digit YoY growth in the first half of 2011. The Secure Content and Threat Management (SCTM), Security and Vulnerability Management (SVM), and other security softwares reached a YoY growth rate of 16.4 percent, 14.2 percent and 21 percent respectively.

The security software market grew 18.5 percent over 1H 2010 to US$796 million in 1H 2011. As security threats are getting more severe and complex, the overall security software market is forecasted to grow 17.5 percent to US$1.674 billion in 2011 compared to 2010.

IDC sees vendors applying their cloud computing technology to their security infrastructure including integrating the cloud based security functions into their products.

“It has become the mainstream of the secure content and threat management. As resource sharing and optimization are the major objectives under the highway of universal virtualization, the adoption rate of cloud based security infrastructure, which can offer a light-weighted instantly-updated global virus library, will continue to grow and extend into all the security functional markets,” said Lam.