The Zhitong Finance App learned that on July 10, IDC published an article stating that the integration of IT and OT has further deepened. While improving efficiency, it has also exposed industrial control systems to more complex network environments, and there is no time to delay the construction of industrial control security for enterprises and organizations. IDC predicts that by 2026, the global industrial safety market will reach 6.7 billion US dollars, with a five-year compound growth rate of 28.4%.

In order to better help end users win the market, IDC makes the following suggestions:

Strengthen product development iteration: On the one hand, security audit products from technical service providers should adapt to the background of IT and OT integration to help users solve monitoring and audit problems in different environments at the same time. At the same time, against the backdrop of a sharp increase in log volume, users' requirements for detailed and fine-grained audit of audit products are gradually increasing. In addition to full-flow audits, audits of assets, accounts, equipment, data, and behavior have become a key capability for auditing products; on the other hand, industrial enterprises have become a major trend, and the cloud-based and virtualized forms of industrial safety audit products will help technology service providers open up a new situation and open up new markets.

Assist users to build an integrated and intelligent industrial control safety system: For end users, back-end security management, safe operation and maintenance operation platforms face the problems of large data volume and difficulty in judgment. Safety audit products should give full play to their advantages, use artificial intelligence and other technical capabilities to construct intelligent security strategies and models, thereby improving product analysis capabilities, and ultimately improving the timeliness and accuracy of incident judgment and processing.

The shortage of industrial safety personnel needs to be addressed urgently: technical service providers need to reserve a large number of professionals who also understand IT and OT safety knowledge to provide users with professional safety operation services in order to help enterprises solve the shortage of professionals. In addition, “generative AI” related technology can help users solve simple security problems through questions and answers, etc., and ultimately improve customer satisfaction and increase user stickiness while improving user security defense effectiveness.

Wang Yiting, senior cybersecurity market analyst at IDC China, said that at present, many industrial enterprises have begun to speed up the implementation of new industrialization and new quality productivity, and accelerate their investment in resilient infrastructure, smart manufacturing, smart factories, digital twins, industrial simulation, and artificial intelligence. Among them, safety is a prerequisite for new quality production, and industrial safety construction is of great significance in maintaining the development and operation of enterprise business. As an important safety compliance product, industrial control safety audits provide a foundation for enterprise safety investigations through recording and analysis of traffic, assets, accounts, equipment, behavior, data, etc., and have become an essential product for end user industrial safety construction. In the future, refined, fine-grained, and intelligent security audit products that meet user needs will win more market recognition and effectively help users implement an integrated security defense system. IDC will also continue to monitor this market.