Spend on unified threat management to soar by 98 percent over 5 years: Juniper

As cybersecurity continues to be at the top of leaders' minds, a new study from Juniper Research shows that enterprises' spending on unified threat management will skyrocket by 98 percent between 2023 and 2028.

The spending over those five years is predicted to hit US$7.5 billion globally.

Unified threat management is an approach to information security where a single hardware or software installation provides multiple security functions.

This contrasts with the traditional method of having point solutions for each security function and therefore, it simplifies protection.

As the cyberthreat landscape becomes more complex, with growing enterprise cloud adoption, IoT devices being used, and AI powering new threats, unified threat management is necessary for enterprises to stay secure.

As such, analysts at Juniper anticipate increasing levels of investment by enterprises, as they come to terms with the expanding threat landscape.

According to the research, the leading players scored well based on their breadth of protection capabilities, as well as their use of AI for managing evolving threats and coordinating responses.

In order to stay ahead of the competition, vendors must develop advanced secure access service edge (SASE) solutions, which enable local and remote services to be protected with the same security and networking policies, to further advance security.

Nick Maynard, report co-author at Juniper Research said enterprises want to minimise risk, whilst increasing value from IT spend.

“Unified threat management enables enterprises to collate and act on information in a single location, reducing complexity and cost. The best vendors will leverage AI to reduce manual requirements and increase the return on investment for businesses,” he said.

The Juniper study provides key industry trends, including the growth expected in using unified threat management systems, how these systems will transform how enterprises manage their cybersecurity risks, and how smaller businesses are beginning to adopt these services.