Cloud-based security services market will grow 21 percent to $5.9 billion in 2017, and $9 billion by 2020, according to Gartner.
Overall growth in the cloud-based security services market is above that of the total information security market.
Organizations’ top-three cloud priorities are email security, web security and identity and access management (IAM). Services that address these priorities, including security information and event management (SIEM) and IAM, and emerging services offer the most significant growth potential.
Emerging offerings are the fastest-growing segments and include threat intelligence enablement, cloud-based malware sandboxes, cloud-based data encryption, endpoint protection management, threat intelligence and web application firewalls (WAFs).
Increasing security threats, operational and cost benefits and staffing pressure drive market growth.
Gartner said SMBs are driving growth as they are becoming increasingly aware of security threats. SMBs are also seeing that cloud deployments provide opportunities to reduce costs, especially for powering and cooling hardware-based security equipment and data center floor space.
“The cloud medium is a natural fit for the needs of SMBs. Its ease of deployment and management, pay-as-you-consume pricing and simplified features make this delivery model attractive for organizations that lack staffing resources,” said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.
The enterprise sector is also driving growth as they realize the operational benefits derived from a cloud-based security delivery model.
Cloud-based delivery models will remain a popular choice for security practices, with deployment expanding further to controls, such as cloud-based sandboxing and WAFs.
Public cloud will be the prime delivery model for more than 60 percent of security applications by the end of 2017.
