by Shane Henson — November 22, 2013—The cloud-based security services market will be worth $2.1 billion in 2013, rising to $3.1 billion in 2015, according to research by Gartner Inc., a global information technology research and advisory company.
Gartner said that growth in cloud-based security will remain strong, but revenue opportunities will vary. Gartner predicts that the top three most sought-after cloud services moving forward will remain e-mail security, Web security services, and identity and access management (IAM). However, in 2013 and 2014, the highest growth is forecast to occur in cloud-based tokenisation and encryption, security information and event management (SIEM), vulnerability assessment, and Web application firewalls.
Overall adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and other cloud-based services encourages organizations to adopt cloud-based security controls, says Gartner. These are delivered either as stand-alone features or as part of an integrated SaaS package. Managed security services (MSS) are also driving adoption of cloud-based security services among enterprises. MSS delivery models are in turn being affected by demand for cloud-based security services, which is enabling security providers to become de facto MSS players, adds the company.
Gartner says it expects acceptance of, and reliance on, cloud-based security-as-a-service offerings to increase, based on organizations gaining more experience with SaaS and more consumer-grade technology being made available to corporate systems as a result of trends, such as bring your own device.
Cloud-based security services will grow faster than the market for remotely monitored customer premises equipment MSS through 2012, but starting from a smaller base, the company forecasts. In the next 24 months, new security-as-a-service-based offerings that address specific security controls for cloud-based information technology (IT) resources will be available from larger IT and network service providers, aimed initially at small or midsize businesses (SMBs). Gartner predicts that smaller, pure-play managed security service providers will be most affected by the introduction of these services, and expects them to consolidate
Identity And Access Management (IAM)
Within the identity and access management (IAM) space, interest in cloud-based security has been driven mostly by SMBs’ needs to extend their basic IAM functions and serve employees who are accessing SaaS and some internal Web-architected applications, says Gartner. An increasing number of organizations seem to be adopting cloud-based IAM services to replace IAM on-premises tools. Larger businesses are often looking to use IAM as a mixture of legacy- and Web-architected cloud and on-premises, notes the company.
Additional information on security can be found in the Gartner special report, The Future of Global Information Security.
