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Forrester Forecast $12.6 Billion in Global Cloud Security Spending by 2023

Forrester’s 2019 forecast projected $12.6 billion in global cloud security tools spending by 2023, but the available sources do not verify the realized total.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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In 2019, Forrester forecast that global spending on cloud security tools would rise from $5.6 billion in 2018 to $12.6 billion by 2023. That $12.6 billion was a projection, not a verified tally of what companies ultimately spent. The available sources do not establish a comparable realized 2023 total.

What the $12.6 billion figure meant

The figure came from Forrester’s global Cloud Security Solutions Forecast, 2018 to 2023, published April 1, 2019. Dark Reading reported the forecast on April 18, 2019: cloud security tools spending was expected to grow from $5.6 billion in 2018 to $12.6 billion in 2023. These are market estimates in a forecast, not audited accounts of every company’s purchases or a single vendor’s revenue.

The estimate concerns security products and capabilities used across cloud environments. It is not total cloud-computing expenditure or all cybersecurity spending. Forrester’s report record identifies three categories:

  • Cloud security gateways, also known as cloud access security brokers (CASBs).
  • Cloud workload security solutions.
  • Public-cloud-native platform security.

Forrester’s report description is available on Forrester’s forecast record; the detailed figures below were reported contemporaneously by Dark Reading.

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How the forecast divided the market

Public-cloud-native platform security was the largest segment described in the 2019 coverage. The reported 2018 estimate of $4 billion represented more than 70% of the cloud-security-tools baseline. Forrester projected $9.7 billion for this segment in 2023.

Measure 2018 2023
Global cloud security tools $5.6 billion reported as the forecast baseline $12.6 billion forecast
Public-cloud-native platform security $4 billion reported; over 70% of cloud-security-tools spending $9.7 billion forecast

The 2019 coverage also reported forecast growth expectations of 20% per year for public-cloud-native platform security and 17.3% per year for cloud workload security tools. The accessible coverage does not specify exact start and end years for the 20% rate, so it should not be read as a measured annual growth rate over a precisely defined period. The 17.3% figure is likewise a forecast expectation, not a realized result.

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What counted as cloud security

Native platform security refers to protections built into public cloud platforms. The 2019 coverage described capabilities such as data categorization and segmentation; controls over server and resource access; identity and role-based access control; encryption at rest and in transit; key management; logging; and anomaly detection.

Workload security addresses protections applied to workloads running in cloud environments. Dark Reading reported that cross-cloud use was one reason Forrester expected demand for workload security tools to grow. Gateways and CASBs form another part of the forecast’s scope, covering security controls that mediate or govern cloud service use.

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Why Forrester expected spending to grow

Adoption and concern about data protection formed part of the forecast’s context. Dark Reading reported that, in Forrester’s 2019 account, 54% of infrastructure decision-makers had implemented or were expanding public-cloud use, compared with 25% in 2015. Those are historical survey figures, not a measure of current cloud adoption.

Jennifer Adams, then a senior forecast analyst at Forrester, told Dark Reading: “There’s more and more of a sensitivity that if data is personal, it needs to be kept private,” citing penalties from regulations such as GDPR. Adams also described the rapid growth of public-cloud-native platform security as “a huge change from what we’ve seen previously.” These are remarks reported in 2019, not current survey findings.

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Was the $12.6 billion forecast reached?

The forecast’s target year has passed, but the sources cited here do not establish a like-for-like realized global total for cloud-security-tools spending in 2023. Forrester’s forecast record confirms the report’s date, global scope, and categories; the detailed figures are available through contemporaneous trade coverage. Neither source supplies a comparable actual-spending figure.

Forrester’s February 2025 global technology forecast said cybersecurity and cloud solutions were among the drivers of global technology spending, but it did not report an actual 2023 total for the cloud-security-tools categories in the 2019 forecast. That broad technology-spending context cannot confirm whether the $12.6 billion projection was met.

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A later figure would only answer the question if its geography, year, and category boundaries match the original forecast—and if it measures comparable spending rather than, for example, vendor revenue or a differently defined market. Without those conditions, comparing numbers could create a misleading impression of accuracy.

Source: Forrester’s February 2025 global technology forecast announcement.

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