From Equifax to Yahoo, and Facebook to Marriott, large-scale data breaches impacting hundreds of millions of consumers have received their fair share of media attention in recent years. All this ink hasn't been spilled (or pixels displayed) in vain: there's growing awareness among business leaders of the security and privacy risks their organizations face, and increasing concern that their preparedness may be inadequate. In a recent PwC survey, for example, 72% of CEOs worldwide listed cybercriminal activity as a significant threat to their businesses, yet only 35% were comfortable with their organization's digital resilience and readiness to face such threats. Especially among small and mid-sized enterprises, the growth in awareness of the severity and urgency of cybersecurity risks is driving demand for managed security services. Organizations are increasingly turning to external vendors to help them build, maintain, and monitor their security operations programs and the technologies that comprise them.

With cyber threats rising rapidly, security service providers see an increase in demand for their products, prompting them to invest in latest technologies such as machine learning to predict and prevent attacks. Paladion Networks, a B2B cyber security service provider for the banking sector, saw a 30 per cent increase in business in the last two years. Shree Parthasarathy, Partner, Deloitte, said large enterprises are now investing almost 10-15 per cent of their IT spend in cyber security. The user base of Chennai-based K7 Computing Pvt Ltd, anti-virus software and internet security solution, increased rapidly over years. For instance, the company had 800 active users in 2010, but it now has 5,000 daily users.