Cloud security services will be a $5.9bn market in 2017

Cloud-based security services saw a huge increase during the last 12 months,  according to the latest figures from Gartner.

In a new report, Gartner says cloud-based security services will reach $5.9 billion this year, representing a 21 percent growth compared to the year before.

Overall growth for the cloud-based security services are outpacing the total information security market and by 2020, Gartner believes cloud-based will hit $9 billion.

The driving force behind this immense growth are small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). They are becoming increasingly aware of security threats and are willing to invest more to protect themselves. They also see cloud deployments as ways to reduce costs.

"Email security, web security and identity and access management (IAM) remain organizations' top-three cloud priorities," says Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.

Mainstream services addressing these issues, like security information systems and event management systems, are showing the greatest growth potential, Gartner added.

"Emerging offerings are among 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," the report states.

"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," adds Contu. "The ability to leverage security controls that are delivered, updated and managed through the cloud -- and therefore require less time-consuming and costly implementations and maintenance activities -- is of significant value to enterprises."

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