The global web application firewall market is expected to exhibit significant growth owing to increasing incidences of web attacks. High penetration of internet and increasing use of web applications have increased the demand for solutions that can prevent different vulnerabilities. Rising cases of new threats and attacks, which could be attributed to technological advancements, are likely to increase demand for cyber security in organizations. WAF detects and prevents session hijacking, buffer overflows, SQL injection attacks, and cross site scripting (XSS) attacks. Organizations are increasingly using online sources to run their business due to rapid digitization. This has led to a rise in web attacks, such as cyber theft, espionage, vandalism.
Increasing popularity of cloud-based WAF solution is expected to support market growth in the years to come. The cloud-based deployment offers better scalability, usability, and flexibility in security protection. In addition, these solutions enable access control, bot detection, and threat intelligence abilities. The cloud-based protections have the ability to provide protection against new cyber-threats, phishing, malware, and ransomware. Moreover, these are designed to protect virtual private network and offer distributed denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation as well as application programing interface security.
Growth of mobile technology has also increased the demand for mobile application security. Growing trend of bring your own devices (BYOD) has increased the use of mobile devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and smart wearable devices, in organizations. This has led to a rise in cases of data breaches related to mobile applications. Increasing need for protecting critical information in the organizations is likely to fuel demand for WAF to protect public and private network. In addition, growing need for protecting software and related data during software development lifecycle is expected to have a positive impact on market growth. Furthermore, strict implementation of cyber security laws in several countries to provide security in different sectors, such as government institutions, healthcare, and BFSI, is expected to present growth opportunities in the market. Regulatory compliance requirements, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), is also expected to support market growth in future.
Due to limited skilled in-house security professionals, numerous companies are outsourcing their WAF security models. This is expected to boost the demand for security services in the coming years. Security services are expected to witness high demand in the coming years due to growing need for protecting data application on multi-tenant and virtual environment. Increasing need for securing access across networking devices is also fuelling the demand for these services among individual uses, large enterprises, and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
North America is a leading region in the market due to increasing cases of security breaches and presence of key participants. Countries, such as the U.S. and Canada, are contributing significantly to regional market growth. Strict government regulatory policies on IT security to improve data security across government and private organizations can boost regional growth in coming years. Growing trend of IoT is also expected to increase the demand for WAF solutions in the region.
Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness momentous growth in the coming years owing to expansionof ecommerce platform and increasing implementation of IT security solutions. In addition, improvement of IT infrastructure, high adoption of cloud computing, and growing number of hosting service providers can boost the demand for WAF solutions in the region. Countries, such as India and China, are the key contributors to regional growth due to growing adoption of web and mobile applications.
Some of the prominent companies operating in the WAF market are Qualys Inc.; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Barracuda Networks, Inc.; Juniper Networks, Inc.; and F5 Networks, Inc. Manufacturers are offering novel products, such as stand-alone WAF, integrated WAF, and embedded WAF. In addition, they are increasingly investing in R&D activities to gain a competitive edge in the market.
For instance, Quttera, a cybersecurity software and services company, launched its WAF. This new firewall is provided as a managed service to protect zero-day threats, OWASP top 10, and other application layer attacks. Its website anti-malware platform called ThreatSign, can allow the firewall to monitor the incoming traffic and block the cyber-attacks automatically.
