Sri Lanka Network Security Market, yet Untapped - `Telecom’, the Largest Spender in Adoption of Network Security Technologies, BFSI and Government Follow, Reveals Frost & Sullivan Study

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Launched at Frost & Sullivan’s South Asia Enterprise Security Summit 2009

Frost & Sullivan, at its recently hosted summit - “South Asia Enterprise Security Summit 2009″, unveiled the report titled “Overview and Way Forward on Sri Lanka Network Security Market”. The report states that the telecom sector is leading the market when it comes to adopting network security technologies in Sri Lanka with most of the telecom players catering to the domestic market. BFSI stood as the second largest spender.

BFSI companies in Sri Lanka are attuned to the concept of having an active role in monitoring and upgrading their security strategies. However, due to the economic slowdown, the performance of BFSI in Sri Lanka was not as impressive in 2008 as expected. The spending by the Government in Sri Lanka remained pretty strong and focused in 2008 and attained the third position. This also goes to show the commitment of the Sri Lankan Government in addressing all relevant IT matters, as well as its salient role in driving network security business and trends. This vertical is expected to show the highest growth amongst all verticals in the forecast period 2007 - 2015.

However, as there are no strict guidelines or rules by the Government or any other body in Sri Lanka that needs to be followed by different companies, verticals like manufacturing and retail, which traditionally are not very proactive in IT security issues, are still not very IT-complaint in Sri Lanka.

The report also reveals that 2009 is expected to see many global network security players entering the Sri Lankan market, which would make this market highly competitive in terms of pricing. Moreover, the companies that could provide a complete suite of UTM capabilities and integrate all vital technologies into one appliance and make it easy and reliable for the customer can be expected to be able to fulfill the market need of security combined with affordability.

Besides the study, Frost & Sullivan also conducted a CIO Survey in Sri Lanka. It revealed that major threats for IT security were highlighted by 85 percent of the respondents who believed that Virus, Worms, and Trojan Horses are the major disquiet in today’s IT environment. 55 percent respondents felt that data security was one of the major concerns for them and that they would take appropriate measures against them. Downtime and physical security were also some of the other security concerns for CIOs.

It was also noted that adoption of IT regulations and guidelines amongst most organizations remained quite dismal, with only 36 percent companies following some IT guidelines laid down by various bodies, purely based on their business needs.

Commenting on the overall enterprise security scenario for enterprises, Girish Trivedi, Deputy Director, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East, stated “The Internet is becoming an enabler. However, threats in the networked world are getting bigger and becoming more malicious and moving from external to internal. Enterprises need to evaluate and preempt these threats as the gap between attacks / attempt made, to detection is abysmally low. As most attacks go undetected or unreported, enterprises maintain the misconception that they are safe, and the consequences (resulting from a security breach) can be anything from losing reputation, customers, and competitive advantage, to legal issues, leading to considerable financial loss.”

Mr. Arun Shetty, Senior Manager - Systems Engineering, Cisco Systems - India and SAARC further added that, “The world is changing and flexible new technologies delivering revolutionary forms of collaboration and communication are transforming the way businesses interact, both internally and externally. Mobile devices and virtual platforms have torn down the already wavering notion of a “network perimeter”; this has led to newer threats and risks, and as these have evolved, so have our responses to them. Cisco with the approach of Comprehensive Threat Intelligence, End-to-End security solution and Business-enabling Services provide a rich, highly secure Collaborative experience using Network as the Platform.”

The Summit, through presentations and discussions, covered some of the key areas like the Evolving Role of the Chief Information Security Officer, Collaborating with Confidence, Best Practices in Security Implementation, Establishing Trustworthy Computing in an Enterprise, and Managing Security on a Limited Budget.

The keynote was addressed by Mr.Aditya Sapru, Senior Vice President (Strategic Alliances), Frost & Sullivan, Asia Pacific. Other eminent speakers included Mr. Arun Shetty, Senior Manager - Systems Engineering, Cisco Systems - India and SAARC, Mr. Samath Fernando, CIO, Hirdaramani Group of Companies, Mr. Ramesh Shanmuganathan, Executive Vice President / Group Chief Information Officer, John Keells Holdings Limited, Mr. Ramanan Devairakam, GM Enterprise, Dialog Broadband, and Mr. Pravin Srinivasan, Regional Manager, Advanced Technologies, Cisco Systems, India (South and East).

The Summit was supported by Cisco as the Platinum Sponsor and Dialog Broadband as the Silver Sponsor. The National Media Partners were Lanka Business Online and Lanka Business Report (part of ETV). International media partners were BenefIT, CIOl.com, and Express Computers.

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For more information on Frost & Sullivan Report OR Survey, contact: Caroline Lewis Corporate Communications - South Asia P: +91-22-4001-3438 F: +91-22-2832-4713 E: caroline.lewis@frost.com Nimisha Iyer Corporate Communications - South Asia and Middle East P: +91-22-4001-3404 F: +91-22-2832-4713 E: niyer@frost.com

Source: Frost & Sullivan (India) Pvt. Ltd.

For more information on Frost & Sullivan Report OR Survey, contact: Caroline Lewis, Corporate Communications - South Asia, P: +91-22-4001-3438, F: +91-22-2832-4713, E: caroline.lewis at frost.com. Nimisha Iyer, Corporate Communications - South Asia and Middle East, P: +91-22-4001-3404, F: +91-22-2832-4713, E: niyer at frost.com