The move to all-software based working may be gaining pace, but analyst firm ABI Research is predicting that, in security at least, hardware will maintain its grip for the foreseeable future.
Its latest research reports, Cybersecurity Technologies and Digital Authentication and Embedded Security, predict that the global hardware encryption market revenue to reach $36.4bn by the end of 2015.
The analyst says that firms across all sectors face an increasing number of regulations and requirements to protect data from unauthorized access both internally and externally. It sees hardware-based solutions, such as self-encrypting drives and USB flash sticks, as bypassing many of the typical drawbacks of software-based solutions like performance degradation or vulnerability to attacks aimed at the encryption key stored in memory.
One of the key sectors where hardware encryption products will likely be rapidly adopted is healthcare. ABI regards health organizations as vulnerable targets because they are slower to adopt measures like keeping personal information in separate databases that can be closed off in the event of an attack.
Other sectors where it believes that hardware encrypted products will be adopted include financial services, consumer electronics, communication networking security, automotive, and transportation.
“In the future, more and more healthcare organizations will turn to hardware-based encryption technologies together with other security measures to ensure that the data remains encrypted to all but those authorized to access it,” commented Monolina Sen, ABI Research’s Senior Analyst in Digital Security.
“Meanwhile, government, defense, and intelligence agencies are also under intense pressure to comply with a lengthening list of legislative requirements and protocols designed to protect sensitive data in transit and at rest.”
In terms of market leading players and products that offer hardware based encryption, the report highlights IronKey (by Imation), WinMagic, Vormetric, SanDisk, Seagate, Rambus and SafeNet.
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