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Innovation

Security-as-a-service captures the eyes of the enterprise

Businesses are increasingly looking to put their security defences in the cloud, according to IT analyst firm Gartner.
Written by Sam Shead, Contributor

The cloud-based security market is expected to grow to $4.2bn by 2016 as businesses seek to cut the amount they spend on IT security by moving security products off-premise and into the cloud, according to technology research firm Gartner.

The forecast, outlined in Gartner's "Demand for Cloud-Based Offerings Impacts Security Service Spending", follows on from a study released in January, where the analyst house claimed that 10 percent of IT security product capabilities will be hosted in the cloud by 2015.

"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," said Eric Ahlm, research director at Gartner, in a statement. 

"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."

Common cloud-based security services include email security, web security services, identity and access management (IAM), website protection (fraud), web application firewall, and application security testing. However, Gartner recognises that many businesses will remain cautious when it comes to sending sensitive log information data to the cloud.

According to Gartner, the availability of these cloud-based security services is having a significant impact on the security market, influencing the way organisations deploy and consume security controls.

"The value that cloud services bring to security buyers is measurable in terms of capital and operational cost reduction," said Ahlm. "Security providers that currently offer only a hardware/software-based solution requiring implementation should build product road maps that allow customers to move to the cloud at their pace." 

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