UAE Cloud Security Market Research Report: Forecast (2022-2027)

Market Definition

Cloud security offers protection to cloud-based services & cloud computing architectures. It is available as a standalone solution or as part of a suite of products & addresses various parameters such as data, architecture, compliance, governance, and identity & access. A cloud security solution offers features such as vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, encryption, identity & access management (IAM), endpoint monitoring, and application & messaging security. Furthermore, the rising adoption of cloud-based services in small & medium-scale enterprises results in elevating the market growth.

Market Insights

The UAE Cloud Security Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 13.26% during the forecast period, i.e., 2022-27. The factors responsible for the market growth are the rapid investments by the global & regional cloud services providers in the country, proactive government measures towards strengthening cybersecurity, increasing adoption of cloud services by enterprises for achieving scalability & cost-effectiveness, and mitigating cyberattacks, among others, have driven the demand for cloud security solutions during the historical periods. Moreover, the UAE has been at the forefront of implementing cloud services, both in government entities & private companies. Thus, the deepening cloud cluster in the country has bolstered the need for stronger cybersecurity, which has prompted a marked increase in cloud security demand.

• In 2019, the UAE's Telecommunications & Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) launched the National Cyber Security Strategy to build a comprehensive cybersecurity ecosystem for the ICT sector & catalyze digital transformation by implementing 60 initiatives based on 5 pillars for tightening the cybersecurity foundation.

Moreover, the ever-growing initiatives of the UAE government to bring automation in government activities for enhancing their service delivery & increasing accessibility on the government portals through cloud implementation have tailed the risks of cyberattacks & security breaches to sensitive public information. Additionally, various initiatives in the region, such as eSignature & digital certification, and Child Digital Safety, among others are expected to proliferate the demand for cloud security in the forthcoming years.

Key Trends in the Market: Rise of Serverless Computing

With the rapid escalation of software developing ecosystem in the UAE, the demand for serverless computing has also witnessed a noteworthy inclination. It allows software developers to deploy functions, such as code execution, application development & management, among others on the cloud as and when required. Importantly, it eliminates the need for hosting and managing complex IT infrastructure, especially servers, racks, networking devices, etc., and lets the user to work over cloud platform. In 2022, the UAE government launched Coders HQ to build an ecosystem for next-gen coders and aims to become a global hub for innovative solutions. Therefore, the country would see an upsurge in the demand for serverless computing, thereby, paving strong grounds for serverless security solutions for cloud infrastructure in the upcoming years.

Impact of Covid-19 on the UAE Cloud Security Market

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in escalating the demand for cloud-based services in the UAE. This is due to the significant acceleration in the adoption of cloud services in the region. During the pandemic, various business operations started using cloud services to cut costs & operate remotely, which increased the demand for cloud security solutions. As a result, several small & medium, and large enterprises made a sudden shift towards work-from-home policies, which positively impacted the market growth. Additionally, some organizations witnessed unprecedented challenges like increasing cases of cyber threats & attacks, which negatively affected their business growth.

Therefore, businesses deployed cloud security as a countermeasure to deter cyber breaches. Furthermore, the growing demand for hybrid & multi-cloud platforms in the country to have a seamless user experience with ease in infrastructure scalability has elevated the market growth. Moreover, the rapid trend of serverless computing has heightened the demand for cloud-based services for business operations. This is anticipated to fuel the requirement for cloud security in the UAE.

Market Segmentation

Based on the Enterprise Size:

• Large Enterprise
• Small- & Medium-sized Enterprise

Among them, the large enterprises held a notable share in the UAE cloud security market, owing to the surging adoption of cloud services for providing cloud storage, Software as a Services (SaaS) platforms, and disaster recovery. Therefore, the adoption of cloud security has increased to avoid cyber-attacks & provide full-time security on the online platform of enterprises. Hence, the application of cloud security in the enterprise increases the data security from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, malware, hackers, and unauthorized user access or use.

Furthermore, the rapid expansion of commercial offices & Multi-National Companies (MNCs) in the UAE, has been a major factor in the growth of the cloud security market, as the companies have begun to use cloud services platforms to provide a wide range of online platforms to their clients. Hence, the rising adoption of these platforms by the MNCs results in escalating market growth.

Based on Security Type:

• Identify & Access Management
• Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)
• Remote Vulnerability Assessment
• Data Loss Prevention
• Others (Operations Management, Risk & Compliance Management)

Of them, Identity & Access Management & data loss prevention (DLP) has been observed to record the highest growth rate during 2017-21. Identity theft has become a major challenge for end-users such as banking & finance, government, and oil & gas, among others. In the cyber security space, identity & access management proved to play a crucial role in managing digital identities & user access to data, systems, and resources within an organization. Due to this, the implementation of identity & access management has been elevating in double digits in the country & would witness sustainable growth during 2022-27.

Based on Deployment Type:

• Public Cloud
• Private Cloud
• Hybrid & Multi-Cloud

Based on the deployment type, the public cloud acquired a considerable share in the UAE cloud security market in the historical years, owing to the wider adoption of public cloud services by the Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the UAE. The companies have been inclined towards the public cloud due to the scalability & myriad of digital transformation services & to attain cost-efficiency. The public cloud charges only per usage for the CPU cycles, storage, or bandwidth they consume. Additionally, the adoption of public cloud services also saves around 35% of the annual operating cost of the company.

Hence, the public cloud reduces the company’s IT expenditure by eliminating the costs associated with purchasing, managing, and maintaining on-premises hardware & application infrastructure. Moreover, the public cloud offers flexibility to the employees of an organization for accessing the cloud platform from different offices or branches. Due to being easily accessible, the public cloud is more prone to security breaches. Subsequently, the demand for cloud security in the public cloud has been observed to escalate rapidly with an increase in the number of public cloud users in the country.

Based on End User:

• BFSI
• Healthcare
• IT & Telecom 
• Government
• Retail
• Oil & Gas
• Others (Public Utilities, Education Institutes, etc.)

Among all, the rising investments in BFSI and IT & telecom sectors have emerged as the major demand generator for cloud security solutions. As the UAE is becoming the gateway of trade to its neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, etc., the global players in finance & insurance, IT & telecommunications have poured huge investments into the country. Therefore, the exponentially growing global trade with the UAE has generated a vast pool of data in industries, including BFSI and IT & telecom, among others.

Consequently, this has escalated the requirement for multi-layered cloud security mechanisms, which could enhance the data protection process & acts as a deterrence to the cyberattacks.

Recent Developments by the Leading Companies

• In 2020, StarLink, one of the IT distributors in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region formed a partnership with SailPoint, an American Identity security solution provider, to offer businesses identity & access management solutions.

Market Dynamics:

Key Drivers: Upthrow in the Use of Cloud-based Solutions

The rapid increase in the adoption of cloud platforms & services by enterprises as well as the government has elevated the need for cloud security during 2017-21. The UAE has a cloud-first policy for catalyzing cloud adoption in the private & public sectors, due to which the country has seen the burgeoning prevalence of cloud-based solutions. Moreover, the appreciable steps, including the UAE Vision 2021, National Innovation Strategy, TRA Vision, etc., taken up by the UAE government have widened the scope of cloud security solutions in the country.

Since 2017, there have been several investments by the global cloud players, such as AWS, Oracle, Microsoft, and Google, among others, to stretch their product offerings in the region by making the UAE a data hub. As a result, the development of major cloud clusters in the country has been observed to be a key demand generator for cloud security.

• In 2022, Microsoft Azure launched its digitally transformative services, including Azure Purview, Azure Arc enabled servers, Azure Communication Services, and Azure Machine Learning on its Azure UAE cloud regions. Previously, in 2019, the company launched its Microsoft Cloud Regions in the UAE to accelerate its cloud business in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region.

Possible Restraint: Data Breach & Data Loss among Cloud Security Service Providers & End-users

Cloud security services allow remote access to data via the internet, which is the most vulnerable source of misconfiguration. Furthermore, the cloud's inherent nature transforms into a unique collection of traits that makes it more sensitive to all types of data loss. As a result, the risk of cyberattacks and data loss has grown, leading to a drop in demand for cloud-based services.

In addition, the data losses during cyberattacks, in which data is confidential or sensitive information are viewed or used by any other organization. This results in the loss of intellectual property (IP) to competitors, a reduction in competitive advantages, and financial losses due to regulatory consequences. As a result, it has a negative impact on the organization's value, resulting in a decrease in the use of cloud security services.

Key Questions Answered in the Market Research Report:

1. What are the overall statistics or estimates (Overview, Size- By Value, Forecast Numbers, Segmentation, Shares) of the UAE Cloud Security Market?
2. What are the region-wise industry size, growth drivers, and challenges?
3. What are the key innovations, opportunities, current & future trends, and regulations in the UAE Cloud Security Market?
4. Who are the key competitors, their key strengths & weaknesses, and how do they perform in the UAE Cloud Security Market based on the competitive landscape?
5. What are the key results derived from surveys conducted during the UAE Cloud Security Market study?