Hardware Firewall Market Trends

Market Trends of Hardware Firewall Industry

Healthcare Industry is Expected to be the Fastest-growing End User

• Over the past few years, the healthcare industry has become a target of significant interest among cybercriminals. Due to its generation of valuable data, healthcare has recently become vulnerable to cyber-attacks. As per a HIPAA Journal report, healthcare institutions reported 725 data breaches, of which more than 133 million records were under ‘exposed risk’ in 2023. The report also stated that the healthcare industry reported a 239% exponential rise in hacking-related data breaches from January 2018 to September 30, 2023, and a 278% rise in ransomware attacks during the same period.
• Post the COVID-19 outbreak, hackers vastly evolved their tactics to exploit the fears escalating among the population, spurring the need to adopt cybersecurity practices to keep pace with changing threats, especially in healthcare. For instance, in March 2023, Fujitsu announced the launch of a new cloud-based platform that allowed users to collect data safely to promote digital transformation in the healthcare domain. The company planned to offer a new platform to pharmaceutical and medical companies in Japan starting in March 2023. The platform ensures the automatic conversion of medical data from the medical records of medical institutions to regulate with the standards framework (HL7 FHIR) and ensure the safety of documents.
• Various collaborations have been taking place in the industry following a public call asking governments worldwide to join forces with the private sector and academia to ensure that medical facilities are protected from cyber threats. For instance, in October 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a roundtable regarding the cybersecurity challenges that the US healthcare and public health (HPH) sector experiences. They released a cybersecurity toolkit and customized resources for the healthcare and public health sectors. This discussion provided suggestions around cybersecurity and privacy risk management activities.
• As part of their ongoing efforts to help organizations prevent cyberattacks, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a collaboration to release the joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) in December 2023. A growing number of incidents are being registered across the world. For instance, the first Play ransomware incident in Australia was observed in April 2023 and then in November 2023. The advisory recommended executing a recovery plan to maintain the multiple copies of sensitive data in a physical, separate, and secure location. It also suggested having time-based access to highly sensitive data and maintaining offline data backup that is encrypted and immutable.
• Many organizations are becoming more aware of planned investments in cybersecurity infrastructure. For instance, as per a survey conducted by the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity, respondents suggested an increase in healthcare cybersecurity budgets (by around 55.31%), while other respondents suggested their budgets stayed the same (23.46%).

North America is Expected to Hold a Major Market Share

• North America is one of the most technologically developed regions. The growing adoption of technology is expected to result in important changes in the region in the coming years. Some key technological advancements that have the prime potential to alter civilization include robotics, sensor technology, Big Data, and artificial intelligence, resulting in a vast amount of data generation that further needs enhanced data security.
• In recent years, cybersecurity has become an increasingly important area of focus in the United States due to a surge in the total count of cyber threats and attacks faced by organizations and individuals. As per the Identity Theft Resource Center, in 2023, the total number of data compromises in the United States stood at around 3,205 cases. Meanwhile, in 2023, over 353 million individuals were greatly affected by data compromises, including leakage, data breaches, and exposure.
• The market is witnessing mergers, acquisitions, and investments by key players as part of their strategies to improve businesses and their presence to reach customers and meet their requirements for various applications. The government has taken significant initiatives to secure the country against cyberattacks.
• For instance, in March 2023, the White House released its National Cybersecurity Strategy to establish an affirmative vision for a more secure cyberspace that creates opportunities to achieve collective aspirations. The National Cybersecurity Strategy calls for two key fundamental shifts: realigning incentives to favor long-term investments and rebalancing the responsibility to defend cyberspace.
• Thus, a rise in such market activities involving mergers, acquisitions, investments, and government initiatives related to cybersecurity is anticipated to drive the demand for network security solutions within the region throughout the forecast period.