How large is the cyber security market?

I have mentioned the importance of cyber security countless time due to the continuously expanding use of the Internet. I want to discuss how the market will develop over time.

Firstly, cyber security in the future I think will become a government-led market. It has a function that is as important as policing. When more activities take place online, we need some form of policing on the Internet and some prevention to keep damage away from ourselves. Cyber security will become the safety nets and watchdogs in the cyber world. In addition, cyber security has to cooperate along with the legislation and social security authorities. Cyber security companies have to give updated cyber security information and report illegal actions occurred in the cyber world to the authorities in order to improve legislation improvement and punish illegal cyber activities. On the other hand, the legislation and policing also have to cooperate with cyber security companies. In the real world, we have CCTVs on our streets to collect evidence for criminal activities and increase the costs for criminal activities and lower the possibility of having criminal activities. Therefore, cyber security companies do not only need to prevent cyber-attacks but also needs a function to collect data to observe individuals’ cyber activities for legislation and social security need.

Under such belief, the clients of cyber security companies will shift from individuals and companies to governments. Cyber security products will become private products to become public goods. However, individuals and companies may still need their personal cyber security products for special needs, just like some people and companies hire bodyguards and security teams to provide additional security. However, when the governments use cyber securities to monitor people’s cyber activities, they may feel they are offended by their governments. Therefore, I believe we have to define which sectors are private and which sectors are public in the cyber world, and just like the real world, people’s activities in their private places should not be monitored and their activities in the public places should be monitored.

If the market develops as my imagination, the cyber security market will be an oligopoly market that is dominated by a small number of large companies supported by several large countries, with several small companies that provide products for individual extra protection.