At the same time, most companies are still fairly low on the database security maturity curve, and so are just beginning to shift their attention from protecting the corporate borders to guarding the corporate jewels.

Businesses are faced with a heightened threat landscape, more sophisticated database attacks and an increased regulatory compliance burden, and Forrester Research predicts they will begin to spend more on database security, which now accounts for just 5 percent to 10 percent of their overall information security budgets. Meanwhile, database vendors are working to bolster their security capabilities, while third-party database security tool vendors continue to add to their offerings.

Market Activity: Consolidation and Growth

Forrester forecasts growth of the database security market at approximately 20 percent annually through 2014, with leading database vendors--for example, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase--further extending database security, and independent vendors--such as Application Security, Fortinet, Imperva, McAfee and Vormetric--filling in the gaps. The database security market is in a state of consolidation, with IBM acquiring Guardium, Oracle buying Secerno, Fortinet incorporating IPLocks, and McAfee snapping up Sentrigo.

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