Security spending on the increase.

• Position: DATA SECURITY

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) globally are forecasted to increase their spending on security products and services 10% annually through 2016. Spending is currently more than $19 billion a year. Cloud security services, which account for 17% of that spending, are projected to increase to 24% by 2016.

These findings, from the recent study by Access Markets International (AM]) Partners Inc. and published in the 2012 Global SMB Security Market Assessment, seem to prove that security is a growing concern for all organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees.

The key drivers behind this intensifying concern and for the adoption of cloud-based security services in particular, according to AMI-Partners, are:

* Proliferation of mobile devices, including BYOD [personal devices used for business in a "bring your own device," or BYOD, scenario], creating significantly heightening security risk exposure, which is becoming unmanageable

* Use of devices by employees to access and disseminate organization data in the same way they do in their private lives--through a variety of social media

* Tabs on security for all these devices are a major challenge for information and communications...