Legal departments and law firms are likely to continue to focus more on information technology risk, given a recent projection that global spending on information security services and products will continue to rise.

According to a recent Gartner study, overall global spending in the sector will total $86.4 billion this year, an increase of 7 percent over last year. Similarly, spending is predicted to jump to $93 billion in 2018, the study said.

“Gartner's latest report about increased spending on security comes as no surprise, given the increase in data breaches, ransomware and the introduction of GDPR [the General Data Protection Regulation] in 2018,” Darren R. Hayes, a professor at Pace University, told Legaltech News.