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The significance of Africa’s Network Access Control market

By , Senior Research Analyst at Global Market Insights (GMI).
Africa , 21 Apr 2021
Smriti Loomba, Senior Research Analyst at Global Market Insights (GMI).
Smriti Loomba, Senior Research Analyst at Global Market Insights (GMI).

The Network Access Control (NAC) market in Africa region is expected to grow significantly by 2027 due to rising number of cyberthreats across the major countries in the region.

As per GMI analysis the South African NAC market generated the revenue of US$ 18.78-million in 2020. NAC helps the enterprises to enforce the network security policies and compliances to the enterprise network to protect them from external threats. NAC allows only trusted and authenticated endpoint devices and nodes to access various network resources of the enterprises.

The Africa NAC market is estimated to generate revenue of over US$ 140-million by 2027 at a growth rate of over 25% due rising digitalisation in the region. There is significant digitalisation taken place in last decade in the African countries such as South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, and Kenya.

The enterprises are focusing on digital infrastructure which is vulnerable to the growing cyberthreats in the region. There is increase in number of cyberattack on the critical enterprise assets in the region in last few years.

For instance, according to Kaspersky, the malware attacks in South Africa were increased by 22% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018. Although there was some decrease in certain malware families and types in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the first half of 2020 in major African countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, but many African countries are not technologically advanced for continuously evolving threat landscape.

The increase in cyberthreat in the region is fuelling the demand for the NAC solutions and services in the region. The enterprises are emphasizing on protecting their network from external threats with NAC solutions that bring extra layer of security than traditional network firewalls. The major enterprises are using the NAC to protect their advanced network infrastructure from the growing cyberthreats.

The major enterprises are still relying on the on-premise NAC solutions due to more control offered by on-premise deployment model. There is huge growth expected in terms of development of cloud computing technologies in the region, the demand for cloud-based NAC solutions is expected to increase exponentially by 2027.

The surge in number of IOT devices across the various industry verticals such as manufacturing, automotive, government and utilities sector is expected to increase the cybersecurity related risks of critical infrastructure of the enterprises.

The increase in security risk has enabled the enterprises to deploy advanced NAC solution to protect the important enterprise network asset.

There is rise in the number of remote devices accessing the enterprise network infrastructure due to COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the government authorities. The increase in work-from-home trend has enabled enterprises to deploy cybersecurity solutions to increase their network security during the pandemic in the region. The recent COVID-19 pandemic impacted positively on the market demand of NAC solutions as the endpoint devices accessing the enterprises scaled up drastically.

Demand in healthcare

The demand for NAC solutions across the healthcare sector in South Africa is expected to grow at a CAGR of 36.2% between 2021 to 2027 due to growing cyberattack on the healthcare institutions. For instance, In June 2020, Life Healthcare Group in South Africa reported a cyberattack that impacted the overall operations. The incident affected email servers, business processing systems, and admission systems. The rise in connected devices in the healthcare sector is putting sensitive healthcare data at risk.

Hackers are also using different medical devices as an entry point into healthcare networks. Such devices include implantable defibrillators and insulin pumps. The healthcare facilities are deploying NAC solutions to avoid cyberattacks on their network devices.

The demand for NAC solutions and services across government sector is anticipated to hold significant growth rate over the forecast period due to supportive government initiatives. The region is anticipated to grow at a rate of over 25% by 2027.

The government agencies are also taking several efforts to train and educate professionals with advanced cyber security technologies and safeguard the digital infrastructure. For instance, in November 2019, the South African government authorities launched an initiative in response to the growing cyberattacks and shortage of cybersecurity professionals.

The authorities worked closely with leading authorities including SETA, MICT, and SASSETA to provide specific skills to individuals.

The companies operating in the Africa NAC market are focusing on the development of advanced NAC solutions by integrating Zero Trust Network (ZTN) to support enterprises with advanced network security solutions.

For instance, in March 2020, Portnox, a leading NAC solution provider, launched Zero-Trust Remote Access-as-a-Service solution to increase network security across enterprise Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). This new solution helped the company to innovate its NAC solutions to increase the remote access security for scaled-up remote users during the pandemic.

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