Cloud-based security services market to reach $4.2 bn by 2016: Gartner

Nearly 10 per cent of overall enterprise product capabilities are likely to be delivered through cloud and the cloud-based security services market will reach $ 4.2 billion by 2016, according to Gartner's latest research. These services are also driving changes in the market landscape, particularly around a number of key security technology areas, such as secure email and secure Web gateways, remote vulnerability assessment, and Identity and Access Management (IAM).

Demand remains high from buyers looking to cloud-based security services to address a lack of staff or skills, reduce costs, or comply with security regulations quickly, according to Eric Ahlm, research director at Gartner.

"This shift in buying behaviour from the more traditional on-premises equipment toward cloud-based delivery models offers good opportunities for technology and service providers with cloud delivery capabilities, but those without such capabilities need to act quickly to adapt to this competitive threat," he said.

A January 2013 Gartner survey on security spending shows high demand from security buyers for cloud-based security service offerings. Security buyers from the US and Europe, representing a cross section of industries and company sizes, stated that they plan to increase the consumption of several common cloud services during the next 12 months. The highest-consumed cloud-based security service is email security services, with 74 per cent of respondents rating this as the top service. Furthermore, 27 per cent of the respondents indicated they were considering deploying tokenisation as a cloud service. Gartner believes regulatory compliance measures to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), for example, are driving much of the growth of interest in tokenisation as a service.