The prediction was based around its conclusion that the range of threats would broaden and new vulnerabilities would emerge, while the frequency of attacks would not decrease.

The company said it had assumed that current investment trends would persist, with the first six months dominated by lockdowns and furloughs.

With vaccination programs having been announced in many countries, economies were expected to start reopening by mid-year.

Canalys said the overall spend on cyber security was expected to reach US$60.2 billion in 2021. This included shipments of endpoint security, network security, Web and email security, data security, vulnerability and security analytics, and identity access management.

“The biggest threats are always those not yet known. The discovery of the SUNBURST advanced persistent threat campaign at the end of 2020, stemming from malicious code injected into the widely used SolarWinds Orion IT management platform and subsequent infiltration into other systems, highlights this,” said Matthew Ball, Canalys chief analyst.

“Cyber security professional services engagements in response to this latest issue will be one of many factors contributing to sustained investment this year, especially in newer solutions to mitigate emerging threats.

"Growth in add-on subscriptions providing new features, products to secure the cloud and delivered from the cloud, and upgrades to existing solutions will be key drivers for expansion.

"The need for organisations to adopt multi-layered and holistic approaches, combining employee awareness training, data protection and backup, threat and vulnerability detection, and response will remain critical.”