For channel partners dealing in the cloud security space, there’s good news. According to a report on the third quarter network security market, the overall network security market is growing annually at three percent, but the shining beacon is cloud security, which grew by more than 20 percent year-over-year.

It’s perhaps not too surprising that cloud security is the strongest-growing area in the general network security market. It is still the newest section of network security, and there’s an incredible and growing need for cloud security services that protect all those apps and data being pushed into the cloud. Even when compared to the next strongest part of the market, which is data center security with growth of more than 10 percent annually, cloud security is showing phenomenal growth.

The report, published by Synergy Research Group, indicated the market leaders in network security are Cisco Systems and Check Point Software, followed by Symantec, Huawei, Juniper Networks and Palo Alto Networks. Particularly within the cloud security market, Cisco and Check Point ranked at the top of the list again, “though both have a higher share in cloud security than they do for total network security,” the report noted.

Cisco captured 30 percent of the market’s overall revenue in the third quarter, but when only examining cloud security, that market share was bumped up to 39 percent. According to Synergy, the cloud security figure has been steadily increasing, in part because of Cisco’s acquisition of Sourcefire.

“Historically security concerns have often been a significant barrier to the adoption of cloud, but the barriers have been weakened by the steady flow of more comprehensive and sophisticated security solutions from the leading vendors,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and chief analyst, in a prepared statement. “This change in attitudes has gone hand in glove with a big increase in spending on cloud security. Cisco’s strength in data center equipment, and especially its strength in service provider data center, has enabled it to strongly grow its share of cloud security revenues.”