The cloud-based security services market will be worth US$2.1 billion in 2013, rising to $3.1 billion in 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The search group says that growth in cloud-based security will remain strong, but revenue opportunities will vary.

"The cloud-based security market remains a viable one, offering providers many opportunities for expansion," says Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. "Encryption will be a new area of growth, but it remains a complex activity. The strongest interest will be in encryption products from cloud security brokers, which are relatively easy to deploy and have options for on-premises encryption management."

Gartner predicts that the top three most sought-after cloud services moving forward will remain email 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. 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.

"The benefits of deploying cloud-based security services are clear," says Kavanagh. "Aside from the broad area of IAM, specific controls, such as encryption, are becoming vital to the adoption of cloud computing. They are further helping to generate interest in this particular form of security service delivery."

Gartner 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 (BYOD).

Cloud-based security services will grow faster than the market for remotely monitored customer premises equipment (CPE) MSS through 2012, but starting from a smaller base. In the next 24 months, new security-as-a-service-based offerings that address specific security controls for cloud-based 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 (MSSPs) will be most affected by the introduction of these services, and expects them to consolidate.