Analysis of the North American Grids Cyber Security Market, Forecast to 2022

The cyber security solutions market has been analyzed on the basis of the five different services, namely Network Access & Operations (NA&O), Analytics & Compliance (A&C), Security Services (SS), Internet Property Defense (IPD), and Device Management (DM). This report is segmented based on solutions offered for the transmission & distribution (T&D) and substation parts of the grid.

Growing energy demand is driving significant investments in utility infrastructure such as the T&D network. With growing investments in power generation, there is a strong need for investments in the downstream areas as well. Most of the T&D infrastructure in the US is aged. The number of systems and networks out there in the field are more than 20 years and they were not built to withstand cyber attacks. Further, the advent of advanced automation and control systems including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Human Machine Interface (HMI) and other high-end networking capabilities has enabled utilities to minimize their downtime and increase the reliability and resiliency of their grid assets.

With the rise in automation systems, there is a growing threat to the safety and integrity of assets as grid assets do not possess a robust security framework for safeguarding against intrusions. Securing each of the value chain components requires a robust physical and IT security solution.

Some of the challenges for the industry include reluctance by utilities in the past to invest in cyber security solutions and the presence of legacy systems along the grid network. Governments are increasingly mandating to protect the critical infrastructures through regulations, fines, or penalties. However, cyber security is beginning to transform the conception of future grid infrastructure in the North American market. The demand for and the adoption of cyber security solutions is mainly driven by factors including rising cyber attacks, regulations and mandates from governments and other regulatory bodies, growing customer touch points along the grid, and the increasing number of smart devices that need cyber protection. This study does not include hardware revenue for market sizing. It also does not take into consideration cyber security solutions developed in-house by the utilities.