COMMENT
E
ven if that outlook
overestimates cloud spend, it
still shows a dramatic shift in
mind-set, and it’s often the business,
rather than the IT department,
that is driving the shift. In today’s
digital world, the pull of the cloud
and its benefits of flexibility, speed,
innovation, cost, and scalability are
now too great to be dismissed by
the usual fears. To compete today,
businesses need to rapidly adopt and
deploy new services, to both scale
up or down in response to demand
and meet the ever-evolving needs
and expectations of employees and
customers, states Rolf Haas, Enterprise
Technology Specialist at Intel Security.
Cloud concerns
This newfound optimism for the
cloud inevitably means more critical
and sensitive data is put into cloud
services. That means security is
going to become a massive issue.
Unfortunately, the same survey
revealed that the picture isn’t
great when it comes to how well
organisations are ensuring cloud
security today. Some 40% are failing
to protect files located on Software-
as-a-Service (SaaS) with encryption
or data loss prevention tools, 43% do
not use encryption or anti-malware in
their private cloud servers, and 38%
use Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
without encryption or anti-malware.
Many organisations have already
been at the sharp end of cloud
security incidents. Nearly a quarter
of respondents (23%) report cloud
provider data losses or breaches, and
one in five report unauthorised access
to their organisations’ data or services
in the cloud. The reality check here is
that the most commonly cited cloud
security incidents were actually around
migrating services or data, high costs,
and lack of visibility into the provider’s
operations.
TO COMPETE TODAY, BUSINESSES NEED TO RAPIDLY ADOPT
AND DEPLOY NEW SERVICES, TO BOTH SCALE UP OR DOWN IN
RESPONSE TO DEMAND AND MEET THE EVER-EVOLVING NEEDS AND
EXPECTATIONS OF EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS
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