Over the past few years, the anti-virus industry has undergone some major changes.

The anti-virus market in India has opened up and the global players are now eying the Indian market, especially the retail, SOHO and SMB segments as they offer huge opportunities for penetration. Also, Internet has definitely created a new conduit for computer viruses to spread at a rapid rate with the explosion in the use of networks. In fact, researchers have found, that earlier viruses used executable files and would typically be no more than an annoyance, by displaying harmless phrases. But off-late the latest viruses are much more sophisticated and able to cause extensive and irreparable damage to files. Apparently, some viruses are able to spread themselves to other computers on the Internet or network causing widespread damage to many systems. In order to counterattack the problems caused by these viruses and to keep up with the accompanying rise of malicious web activity, a number of vendors are busy rolling out layers of updates on anti-virus. Symantec was the biggest anti-virus vendor in 2010, according to latest numbers from IT market research firm Gartner, even as small competitors nibbled away at bigger brands' businesses during the year. Against a 12% increase in the overall security software (anti-virus) market, Symantec was able to increase its revenues by just 5.8%. It was followed, in marketshare, by Intel's McAfee. Symantec's marketshare has fallen from around 25% in 2007 to 18.9% in 2010. McAfee, the #2 in the race, has more or less retained its marketshare with 10.4% last year compared to 10.8% in 2007. According to Sunil Kripalani, VP, global marketing and sales, eScan, The latest viruses are much more sophisticated and able to cause extensive and irreparable damage to files. Endpoints of networks have widened and now include portable computing and storage devices like iPhones, BlackBerry, netbooks, iPods etc. Apart from this, the newly introduced feature, cloud computing has also increased the risk of data leakage. Taking these into consideration, the industry solutions focus on security system that are well integrated, and systems which simplify security management. Though the introduction of cloud computing sounds interesting, lots of speculations are floating around its usage. There are speculations, that with its growing popularity and virtualization among companies, it could be the next possible target of cybercriminals. Also, with IT becoming the backbone of every business, no enterprise can afford to avoid threat management because, hackers and viruses are on a continuous prowl and a minor slip can prove to be costly and disastrous. These threats are serious and ever-evolving, and they are not the only kind of cutting-edge hazard. Hence, currently the market demand for an anti-virus is increasing; which is not only compatible with various cutting-edge technologies, but prevents against the day-by-day increasing threats. According to industry analysts, the worldwide security market is growing at an approximate rate of 15%. The APAC market including India is expected to grow approximately at a good pace of 25% by 2015. The market in Asia Pacific was around $1.3 bn by the end of 2010 and is expected to reach $2.1 bn by 2013. Indian market is growing at a rate of 20-25% on an average. The enterprise segment, including SMB, is one of the key motives of market expansion. Over 2 million new PCs are being added every year in India, so a steady growth and demand is expected for anti-virus solutions. The evolving threats have become sophisticated in terms of both technology and social engineering. The hackers are now targeting primarily improper protection in IT infrastructure, unprotected information, poorly enforced IT policies and weak managed systems. Not only the enterprise but SMB segments have started taking IT security seriously, which has created new business opportunities. SMBs have started assigning budgets as well as spending on the IT security applications. It is followed by the manufacturing, retail, pharma/healthcare and government segment along with the BFSI segment investing heavily on IT security to secure their financial data. Information security becomes vital worldwide, and India is not an exception, thanks to the economic

growth, as well as, the development of technology, gadgets and even improvement of government policies regarding online banking and payments. For example-the leak of vital information related to banking or other personal information is not a concern of business bodies any more. Today, attacks on corporations affect users first of all, rather than business. On the other hand, users have become more educated and particular. They demand high quality product with certain options. For them, anti-virus is no more like the joker in the pack. It promotes competition among vendors, however mostly in terms of marketing. The quality of the product from its technical aspect depends and will always depend on the quality of research team and technologies used by the vendor. The anti-virus industry has to switch to proactive threat detection techniques, behavioral analysis, multi-layered protection and blacklisting, etc. ESET has pioneered and continues to lead the industry in proactive threat detection. ESET's enterprise segment products have registered a steady growth and contribute 25% of the total sales revenue, along with SMB contributing 35% and home segment contributing 40% approximately worldwide. In India, we are expecting a growth of 100% in 2011, as compared to last year, considering that ESET in APAC region showed a growth of 55% in 2009-2010, added Parvinder Walia, channel marketing manager APAC, ESET. Improvement of the anti-virus market While a lot of demand from the SMB segment can be seen, currently it contributes 25% to the overall demand and is expected to grow to 35% this year. The sale of anti-virus clearly defines the rise in the demand from individual customers who contribute around 60% on the basis of volume. According to Venu Palakirti, country manager, India and Saarc, F-Secure, The growth in the antivirus number is pushed up by the volume and complexity of threats that have undergone exponential growth over last few years. Today, people are becoming the targets for phishing scams and identity thefts more than ever before. This has increased the awareness amongst users about security solutions, and with increase in awareness, the market for anti-virus is also increasing. With the growing affordability, consumers today are able to adopt a solution to meet the demands of protecting their irreplaceable content on the PC. The IT industry is a highly progressive industry in India. Security is becoming an integral part of the IT industry because of the emphasis that it receives from the government and associations like Nasscom. Other factors that are driving the growth of the security market in India are broadband and mobile connectivity, rural IT implementations and major government initiatives in IT investments. The end-users are also looking at service as a key differentiator now and more and more people are looking towards their service provider as their security provider. Stating reasons for the growth in the anti-virus market, Amit Nath, country manager, Trend Micro, explained that the threat landscape is ever evolving which can be cited as one of the reasons why it is not a great idea to have a simple anti-virus software in place. It is important to have software that provides state-of-the-art protection for consumers' data, delivered with optimal performance and ease-of-use. We have recently introduced Titanium Security 2011, which not only stops viruses but also protects from spyware, and phishing attacks before they reach the system. Titanium 2011 utilizes a revolutionary cloud-client strategy that combines cloud-based web, email, and file reputation services with Trend Micro's Smart Scanning technology for real-time, up-to-date protection against sophisticated threats, added Nath. Vendor's contribution to the anti-virus market As the market leader for security, Norton is constantly raising the bar for the industry to provide consumers with the fastest and most effective security. Not just Norton but other vendors also seem to constantly innovate and protect their customers from the sophisticated threats of today and tomorrow.

Our products come with reputation technology, which takes the greatest weapon cybercriminals have in their arsenal-their ability to generate unique pieces of malware at an alarming rate, and turns that very weapon against them. We invest 13% of total annual revenue in research and development. We partner with prominent NGOs, educational institutes and event community initiatives to educate consumers about the dangers of cybercrime. We have sponsored events in schools and colleges, including quiz programs such as Discover India and t-shirt designing contests, said Gaurav Kanwal, country sales manager, India, consumer products and solutions, Symantec. Echoing similar sentiments, Abhijit Jorvekar, VP, sales and marketing, Quick Heal Technologies explained that in order to build a strong network of dealers across India (which is now around 10,000) across more than 20 cities in the country, and to keep up with the competition they have developed the distribution model in order to reach end-customers even in tier-2 or tier 3 cities. The IT industry in India is highly progressive. Security is becoming an integral part of the IT industry because of the emphasis it receives from the government and associations like Nasscom. Till date, F-Secure, works with 200 ISP partners worldwide. In India and Saarc, we partner with service providers such as Airtel, TATA Communications, MTNL, Tikona Digital Networks, Reliance, AKNET, and Sify. They are a part of our ecosystem that strives together to bring forward a valueadd to security businesses, for these partners and value to end-customers via subscription method with these service providers, added Palakirti. Also with new entrants in the anti-virus space it looks like the security market will have a positive impact on future developments in this field and will also raise the quality of security solutions. It is to be hoped that the Internet will become a safer place and every desk will not only have a computer on it, but will have a secure computer.