According to a new report by enterprise security specialist Vormetric, 85 percent of senior IT security executives worldwide say they are using sensitive data in the cloud, up from 54 percent last year.
But even as they move to adopt cloud services, and in some cases believe that cloud environments are more secure than their local IT infrastructure, enterprises remain concerned about the security of their information.
When respondents are asked about the top data security concerns for cloud services, 70 percent (75 percent in the US) name security breaches or attacks at the service provider. 66 percent cite increased vulnerabilities from shared infrastructure, 66 percent say lack of control over the location of data, and 65 percent select lack of a data privacy policy or privacy service level agreement.
When asked about changes that would increase their willingness to adopt cloud services, 48 percent asked for encryption of data with enterprise key control on their premises. 36 percent wanted detailed physical and IT security implementation information, 35 percent selected encryption of their organization's data within the service provider's infrastructure, and 27 percent also wanted exposure of security monitoring data for their information.
"Security is still an afterthought when it comes to adopting new technologies, often taking a back seat amidst the rush to stake a claim in a promising new market," says Garrett Bekker, senior analyst, information security, at 451 Research and the author of the report. "We found that enterprises are storing sensitive data in just these types of environments -- 85 percent in cloud, 50 percent in big data, and 33 percent in IoT. Many have strong concerns about the security of their data as a result".
With half of all respondents planning to store sensitive information within big data environments (up from 31 percent on last year), these become a much greater concern for enterprises as a possible point of compromise, and as a focus for compliance efforts. The biggest worries are the Security of the reports produced -- as they may include sensitive data, named by 42 percent of respondents, and that sensitive information may reside anywhere within the environment (41 percent).
The IoT raises similar concerns over the protection of sensitive data and privacy issues. Plus the overlap of IoT with big data has the potential to create a new class of risks.
You can find more information in the full report which is available to download from the Vormetric website.
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