Mumbai, Mar 8 (IANS): As hybrid working becomes a new normal, the end-user spending on security and risk management in India is forecast to reach $2.6 billion in 2022, an increase of 9.4 per cent from 2021, a Gartner report said on Tuesday.

The end-user organisations in India often engage with security service providers to meet their cybersecurity objectives.

As a result, spending on security services is forecast to total $1 billion in 2022, the highest among all segments, followed by spending on network security equipment and infrastructure protection.

"Hybrid or remote working is the new normal in 2022. Some organisations have even shifted to a virtual-first approach following the learnings from 2020," said Prateek Bhajanka, senior principal research analyst at Gartner.

Cybersecurity will continue to be top priority for Indian CIOs this year. Nearly 64 per cent said they will increase their spending on technologies related to cyber and information security in 2022, higher than the global average of 57 per cent.

"Covid-19 was a pivotal moment in the way organisations approached risk or prepared for disruptions. Now, security leaders are putting risk management at the centre of their security and business strategies," said Bhajanka.

In 2022, Indian security and risk management leaders will need to revisit their approach to network security with a focus on technologies such as zero trust network access (ZTNA) for context-based security.

"They need to envision the future of network security in the cloud," Bhajanka noted.