The ascent of cloud-based security has been underlined by figures from Gartner which suggest that the global market value in 2017 is up 21% on last year at $5.9bn.
Analysts have confirmed that the market will remain strong and predicts that the cloud-based security services market will hit $9bn by 2020.
Security information and event management (SIEM) and identity management access (IAM) along with emerging technologies are the fastest growing cloud-based security services segments, according to Gartner.
"Email security, web security and identity and IAM remain organisations' top three cloud priorities," stated Gartner analyst Ruggero Contu.
Emerging technologies include threat intelligence enablement, cloud-based malware sandboxes, cloud-based data encryption, endpoint protection management, threat intelligence and web application firewalls (WAFs).
Gartner says SMBs are driving growth in the cloud-based security services market as they are becoming more aware of security threats and have noted that cloud deployments can also reduce costs.
"The cloud medium is a natural fit for the needs of SMBs," added Contu. "Its ease of deployment and management, pay-as-you-consume pricing and simplified features make this delivery model attractive for organisations that lack staffing resources."
Gartner has also put a spotlight on new security defences and techniques that it says should be considered in 2017.
These include cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP), remote browsers that keep attacks off machines, deception security to trick and confuse hackers trying to attack systems, endpoint detection and response to pinpoint unusual behaviour, network traffic analysis, managed detection and response (MDR) third party services, micro-segmentation to limit damage from a breach, software-defined perimeters (SDP) and container security.