Dive Brief:
- Cloud usage is expected to grow in the next two years, but organizations are struggling with cloud security risks because they lack adequate security and governance practices, according to a new study.
- The study, by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Gemalto, surveyed 3,476 IT and IT security practitioners in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, Russian Federation, India and Brazil.
- IT departments alone are not responsible for deploying cloud technology. Instead, the report found, an average of 49% of cloud services are deployed outside of IT departments. On top of that, an average of 47% of corporate data stored in the cloud is not controlled by IT departments.
Dive Insight:
As cloud’s popularity continues to grow, so does the risk to sensitive data. Organizations therefore need to establish clearly defined roles and accountability for protecting confidential or sensitive information stored in the cloud.
One of the primary challenges, according to the study, is that as cloud grows and becomes more accessible and familiar, IT leaders are losing control of end-users. As a result, more cloud resources are installed without proper assessment.
Despite security struggles, the future of cloud still looks rosy: Respondents estimated that 36% of their organizations’ IT and data processing requirements "are currently met using cloud resources," and that’s expected to grow to 45% by mid-2018.
