SINGAPORE: More firms are looking to tap into the information technology security market as governments globally ramp up spending in the sector.

The global market is estimated to be worth in the region of US$55 billion and government spending into the sector is estimated to double in the next five years.

Cyber security is fast becoming a top priority for many businesses around the world as they work to protect customer information from being stolen or compromised.

IT budgets have been slashed in the past year, amid the economic downturn, but spending on cyber protection has bucked the trend.

Harriet Pearson, vice president, Security Counsel, IBM, said: "During this recession period, we have seen IT budgets in many organisations decrease, but we've also seen that the IT security budgets in organisations are holding firm. This means that the percentage amounts of the IT overall spend on that security is increasing.

"So we find that investment is increasing in security and they are looking at whatever makes sense to respond to compliance mandates and to protect their systems against the increasing number of cyber attacks."

IBM is just one of many firms looking to tap into the growing sector. It invested some US$1.5 billion into research and development in the security industry last year.

Governments are also boosting efforts in the industry. For example, the South Korean government plans to train 3,000 "cyber sheriffs" by 2010 to protect businesses after recent attacks on state and private websites.

Over in the US, the government plans to hire up to 1,000 cyber security experts to ramp up the nations defences.

Leon Perera, group managing director, Spire Research and Consultancy, said: "As part of national defence spending, I think this area is going to attract tens of millions, hundreds of millions and in aggregated terms billions of dollars of investment over the next three to five years.

"If you look at the US, which kind of sets the key note for this kind of spending, there are bills that are working their way through the US legislators which will be setting aside huge sums of money for cyber security initiatives."

The IT security sector is estimated to grow about 14 per cent between 2007 and 2012. - CNA/vm