According to a new research report by Global Market Insights, the global cybersecurity market is set to grow from its current market value of more than $120 billion to over $300 billion by 2024.

This growth is driven by businesses increasing need to minimize security risks and to build and protect trust, both from within organisations and without. As enterprises globally evolve and shift their business capabilities to cloud computing platforms and other networking technologies, they are becoming more vulnerable to various cyber-attacks. To prevent such attacks organisations are seeking cybersecurity technology that addresses ransomware, phishing, malware and other kinds of cyber assaults as the global average cost of a data breach is up 6.4 percent over the previous year to $3.86 million.

At the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco in March, which brought some of the biggest names in cybersecurity together under one roof, discussed the leading trends impacting the industry. One trend dominated the discussions over the four-day event, and that was that “We are not just protecting data and applications and infrastructures,” RSA President Rohit Ghai said. “We are in the business of protecting trust.”

Covering the RSA conference, Tony Kontzer said, “And in an age of advanced technology, that trust has to extend endlessly, because tech has enabled us to reach across the globe in an instant to connect with total strangers. Or, conversely, to pluck funds from their bank accounts or chip away at their reputations.”

One of the key drivers contributing to the exponential growth of the cyber security market globally is the increase in access and affordability of numerous mobile devices as well as the advancements in the connectivity infrastructure. This expansion is driving the adoption of smart devices across enterprises and consumers, simultaneously, increasing the number of cyber-attacks on mobile devices, which increased by over 40% with an average of over 1.2 million attacks per month.

Over the next five years, the identity and access management (IAM) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 17%. The public sector is key to fuelling this growth with increased cyber-attacks on state and federal bodies and the increased need to assure trust between civilians and their governments when it comes to outside influences on election results.

As the adoption of IoT devices and the use of email and web-based applications continues to grow, the infrastructure protection market is also expected to grow considerably leading up to 2020. The need for individuals to be able to trust that organisations are storing their information securely has never been more important, especially since the Marriott incident that saw half a billion customers data stolen including their names, addresses and passport numbers.

While the West Coast of the US continues to attract VC investments of up to $2.5 billion in cybersecurity companies globally, the East Coast of the US and the rest of the world are steadily increasing their investments in the industry. Israel, the UK, and China are driving most of the foreign investment outside of the US, with Israel leading the way.