Cloud-based Email Security Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

Market Overview

The cloud-based email security market was valued at USD 762.82 million in 2020 and is expected to reach a value of USD 1246.99 million by 2026 and grow at a CAGR of 8.68% over the forecast period (2021-2026). With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, the cloud-based email security market is expected to witness significant growth, as cloud-based services and tools are increasingly adopted, due to organizations deploying remote work access, amid lockdown, in various countries. In Italy, Microsoft noticed an increase of 775%, calling and meeting monthly users for the Teams product in one month. According to data provided by Google, about 18 million COVID-19 spamming emails are blocked by the company every day. The increasing usage of cloud-based services during the pandemic is becoming a hotspot for cyberattacks, as millions of people work in unfamiliar and less secure circumstances.

• According to 99 Firms, a prominent email market vendor in the global market, there were about 3.9 billion email users worldwide in 2019, which is expected to reach approximately 4.3 billion in 2023. According to the data port, 45% of emails are spam, which costs businesses about USD 20.5 billion annually. The growth of the cyber environment and related technologies paved the way for new threats. Cyberattacks are highly targeted, persistent, and technologically advanced.
• Moreover, According to a study published by CenturyLink, cloud computing is expected to generate USD 411 billion by 2020. The adoption of this technology is increasing significantly. The main reasons for moving to the cloud are scalability, increased effectiveness, faster implementation, mobility, and disaster recovery. Although cloud computing has witnessed rapid growth over the past few years, data privacy and software security are rising concerns. According to the 2019 report on the state of security operations, 4.1 billion data records are exposed to data breaches and cyberattacks.
• Cloud security software is one of the essential tools deployed by cloud service providers and users to protect the overall cloud infrastructure. Various online companies that rely on the internet as a vital source of information exchange, such as e-commerce companies like Amazon, are more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Financial institutions and healthcare sectors are among the other businesses with high financial gains, lucrative targets for hackers. However, email security outsourcing has an inherent risk, as organizations must rely on and trust a third-party provider for service.
• Moreover, email security outsourcing may be interrupted by technical issues or financial bankruptcy. A severe email failure of security providers can lower an organization’s confidence in cloud-based security. According to IBM, 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices, depending on the industry, which increases the threat of spam mail, phishing mail, and other threats related to email. Factors, such as a need for decreasing onsite datacentre footprints and cost savings, coupled with increasing incidences of spam, viruses, inappropriate content through email, and flexible deployment options, are spurring the market growth.
• Further, in March 2020, Trend Micro released its 2019 Cloud App Security Roundup report. It was specified that the company blocked 12.7 million high-risk email threats in 2019 for customers who could leverage cloud-based email services from Microsoft and Google. This second layer of defense caught risks beyond those detected by the cloud email services’ built-in security. Approximately 11 million of the high-risk emails blocked in 2019 were related to phishing, making up 89% of all blocked emails. Trend Micro detected 35% more phishing attempts related to credentials in 2019 compared to 2018. Moreover, the number of unknown phishing links in such attacks increased from just 9% to approximately 44% in 2019, which shows that scammers are registering new sites to avoid detection.

Scope of the Report

The increasing penetration of cloud-based services in organizations, coupled with the rising number of cyberattacks and the sophistication of malware, spam, and phishing attacks occurring worldwide, is expected to drive the adoption rate for cloud-based email security. The application of cloud-based email security has been deployed publicly, privately, and in hybrid. Various end-user industries, such as BFSI, government, IT and Telecommunications, and retail industries, are also used. Further, the study also covers the impact of COVID-19 on the market.

Report scope can be customized per your requirements. Click here.

Key Market Trends

BFSI is Expected to Hold Significant Market Share

• The financial sector generates a massive volume of data generated by its customers. Banks and financial organizations increasingly employ services to store and analyze complex data to use the collected data through various data points and improve customer satisfaction. Additionally, with higher customer expectations, growing technological capabilities, and regulatory requirements, banking institutions are pushed to adopt a proactive approach to security. This has resulted in incorporating cloud-based security platforms.
• Cloud-based email solutions can help reduce implementation time and costs for banks trying to keep pace with regulations regarding administrative access control. The data is exponentially growing, with an increase in the number of e-transactions. Email exchanges within this sector, among employees and customers, contain crucial valuable information that is rather lucrative and can result in a high gain for hackers. Moreover, organizations in the investment banking sector, which use emails as a primary mode of communication, both internally and externally, are taking measures to encrypt and limit eavesdropping and hacking of their email accounts.
• To secure their IT processes and systems, secure customer critical data, and comply with government regulations, private and public banking institutions are focused on implementing the latest technology to prevent cyberattacks. Furthermore, with higher customer expectations, growing technological capabilities, and regulatory requirements, banking institutions are pushed to adopt a proactive approach to security. Cybercriminals are increasingly using a sophisticated range of tactics. Denial of services, phishing email attacks, and social engineering are financial services firms' most expensive attack types.
• Further, Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are expected to emerge as the most sought-out solution in the future, as cybercriminals are also using similar capabilities to break in. It is expected to attract more investments in strengthening security capabilities by the organizations to counter and mitigate such risks.
• Moreover, according to Cisco Systems, by 2021, 70% of public and private companies are expected to be using cloud email services. The access to email from anywhere and on any device states that it is essential for organizations to protect themselves from increasingly prevalent threats.

To understand key trends, Download Sample Report