New Delhi, Aug 29 (IANS): Spending on information security products and services in India will reach $1.5 billion in 2017 -- an increase of 12 per cent over last year, market research firm Gartner said on Tuesday.

The strong growth was attributed to the widespread skills shortages and proliferation of new security initiatives that several large organisations in the country are engaging in.

The report said that many Indian enterprises are in their first or second iteration of creating and maturing their security programmes, meaning that they have a need for a wide range of security services to help build their security processes and technologies.

"Rising awareness among CEOs and boards of directors about the business impact of security incidents and an evolving regulatory landscape have led to continued spending on security products and services," Siddharth Deshpande, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner, said.

With spending expected to grow to $1.7 billion in 2018, security services will continue to be the fastest-growing segment, especially in IT outsourcing, consulting and implementation services.

However, hardware support services will see growth slowing, due to the adoption of virtual appliances, public Cloud and software as a service (SaaS), which reduces some of the need for attached hardware support overall, the report added.

Earlier this month, Gartner had said that global information security spending will grow seven per cent to reach $86.4 billion in 2017 and up to $93 billion in 2018.