In recent years, cloud brokerage services have become a popular tool for many companies for obvious reasons: instead of utilizing large amounts of valuable space on a company’s service, cloud-based systems allow businesses to store their data online, allowing users to access their information whenever necessary. However, a recent survey shows that security fears may be causing some people to hesitate before implementing these systems.
According to a study by Crowd Research Partners, security is still the biggest barrier to further cloud adoption, with nine out of 10 organizations concerned about the safety of their data. Dominant security concerns include unauthorized access, account hijacking and malicious insiders. However, in an interview on the survey, creator Holger Schulze pointed out that the biggest security risk to these systems was human in nature.
“Employees, contractors, suppliers—all it takes is a malicious insider to circumvent security,” Schulze told eWEEK. “For example, almost 80 percent of managers are concerned about data leakage through employees using personal cloud storage services like Dropbox for work.”
But despite security concerns, the study found that 71% of respondents were still actively planning to implement cloud environments. In fact, more than 77% of the organizations surveyed said they already had some investment in public cloud services, and 37% described themselves as moderate to heavy users of public cloud services.
This seemingly contradictory response is likely due to the wide variety of cloud brokerage services that are currently available to reduce any risks associated with using these innovative systems. For example, many cloud broker companies and cloud consultants offer cloud security assessments to detect and correct any safety risks. However, the study shows that many businesses and organizations seem to prioritize measures that seek to guarantee long-term success: the most popular method to close cloud security gaps was reportedly setting and enforcing consistent cloud security policies, a choice that could potentially prevent the human errors Schulze discussed.
The survey also found that encrypting data at rest and in motion was considered one of the most effective cloud assessment services and protective techniques. Companies also placed less trust in popular cloud apps than they did in on-site applications. Schulze supported these measures, but encouraged companies to be rigorous about their encryption processes to prevent troubling security breaches.
