A plethora of solution categories and sub-categories exist within the PACs domain. The pace of change in such technologies and related threats mean that defining the market in technology terms can be challenging, with PACs product and feature-set boundaries constantly changing in line with market needs - particularly as new technologies reach the point of commoditisation over time.

Hence one segmentation standpoint adopted by Pierre Audoin Consultants in recent domain reports [PAC14] is to segment PACs into broad solution types, indicating what is protected by some combination of underlying technologies. This categorisation is particularly useful in order to categorise the real market subdomains that exist in PACs and are defined by key analyst groups, and is leveraged in Section 6. Four solution type areas are identified in this scheme, namely:

• Infrastructure:  concerned with solutions that secure access/entrance points to the ICT infrastructure being protected, including those offering a secure perimeter, as well as others offering network and device endpoint protection.
• Systems:  while the Infrastructure solutions above are concerned with entry to key network and infrastructure access points, solutions in the Systems category determine what each user can do across each of the organisation’s internal systems after they have entered. Various nuances of Authentication, Identity Management and Access Management solutions make up the core of this solution segment.
• Content: concerned with security at the data level, as well as access to documents, applications and crucial details therein. Encryption technologies have been a core solution area within this category, but a broad range of other newer solutions have also emerged.
• Governance:  solutions in this category provide overall contextual support, acting as an overarching co-ordinator of the cyber security system, with strong emphasis on combining broader PACs service offerings with narrower PACs product offerings. 

Further detail on key product and solution market sub-segments existing within the overall PACs marketplace is provided in the table links below, mainly focusing on solutions typically used across enterprise and consumer buyer segments, as well as a large part of government needs, which combined define the mass-market segments served by most well-known PACs solution areas. These are also the buyer areas predominantly focused on by most existing PACs market analysis sources. Such solution categories are also used within Defence and some highly security-sensitive government buyer segments, but offerings tend to be more one-off and bespoke to advanced needs - hence differing to needs of the majority of players in the enterprise and consumer mass markets.