Vietnam cybersecurity market to reach USD$215 million

The cybersecurity market in Vietnam is expected to reach USD$215 million in terms of revenue by the year ending 2023, according to new figures from Ken Research.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), Vietnam, says the country witnessed around 4,770 cyber attacks incidents in the first quarter of 2019, which was more than half the figure of the total number of incidents reported last year.

The Vietnam retail market is expected to grow at a growth rate of 26% by the next five years, owing to rise in investments in this sector. This has resulted in increase in number of credit card transactions, which has increased the need for efficient cyber security solutions in this sector, the research says.

According to Ken, the ICT industry is further expected to grow at a fast pace due to the Vietnam government's desire to turn Vietnam into an ICT power for growth and transformation of the Vietnamese economy.

The company says the retail and ICT industries are gaining traction in Vietnam.

"Vietnam is witnessing growth in its retail and ICT sector due to the overall development in the Vietnam economy," the research states.

According to the Vietnam Bank Proprietary data, the retail market witnessed an increase in the number of credit card transactions from 10 million in the year 2013 to 46 million in the year 2018, which has also increased the number of cyber threats incidents in this sector.

"Vietnam's ICT sector is the driving force for growth and transformation in the Vietnamese economy, as Vietnam has emerged as a production center for both IT hardware and services such as software development outsourcing," Ken says.

Digitization in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector
According to Ken Research, SMEs in Vietnam are digitalizing rapidly and exploiting the power of technology to increase its revenue and cater to a larger number of customers within and beyond their geographical boundaries.

"Owning an efficient and effective IT infrastructure plays a very important role in the growth of Vietnamese SMEs," the company says.

"The growing number of SMEs in Vietnam is moving towards adopting security solutions that will positively impact the cyber security market in Vietnam in the near future."

Change in Vietnam Cyber Security Law
A law requiring internet companies in Vietnam to remove content that the communist authorities deem to be against the state came into effect in early 2019. Ken Research says the legislation requires internet companies to remove content the government regards as "toxic". Tech giants such as Facebook and Google will also have to hand over user data if asked by the government, and open representative offices in Vietnam, it says.

Ken Research says threats from cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, so security needs to be able to adapt in order to keep up with upcoming cyber threats.

"The adoption of the technologies such as IoT security, cloud technology, block chain, artificial intelligence and others has been growing in Vietnam resulting in the growth of the cyber security market," the company says.

"The adoption of these technologies would increase the cyber crimes in the country which in result would witness a higher demand for the security solutions for protecting these technologies from the cyber crimes," it explains.

Analysts at Ken Research in their latest publication "Vietnam Cyber Security Industry Outlook to 2023 By Solutions (Firewall - UTM, Intrusion Detection System, Antivirus and Others), By End Users (Banking - Finance, Government, IT - Telecom, Retail and Others), By Import and Domestic Security Solutions, By Security (Network Security, Application Security, End-Point Security, Mobile - Wireless Security, Content Security and Cloud Security)" believe that the cyber security industry in Vietnam is expected to expand further due to increase in number of cyber crime incidents, rising awareness of security solutions among firms, growth in the sectors such as retail, ICT and other end user industries, increasing digital penetration in the country and increase in the demand for data security solutions by the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The market is expected to register a positive CAGR of 14.8% for cyber security market in terms of revenue during the forecast period 2019-2023