IT auditing software company Netwrix Corp. has released the results of its 2015 Cloud Security Survey, showing that 65 percent of companies are concerned with security when migrating to the cloud and 40 percent are concerned with the loss of physical control over data once it gets there.

The survey of 600 IT professionals worldwide, who represent technology, manufacturing, government, healthcare, finance, education and other industries, found that most of these concerns are a result of a lack of visibility into sensitive data stored externally, which is perceived to increase security risks and raise fears, subsequently holding back wider cloud adoption.

Alternative pathways to the cloud were considered, with 44 percent of respondents saying they preferred hybrid cloud deployment as a way to transition from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud and 37 percent of organizations considering private clouds as a way to deliver additional security.

Fear about cloud security though remained widespread, with 69 percent of companies afraid that migration to the cloud will increase risks of unauthorized access and 43 percent saying that a move to the cloud increases the risk of account hijacking.

Although you can argue whether these fears are founded or not, a slight majority of companies surveyed were not resting on their laurels and were increasing internal security, with 56 percent planning to improve identity and authentication management, 51 percent utilizing encryption, and 45 percent of medium and large enterprises planning to establish auditing of changes and user activity.

The numbers were not all bad, however, with only 13 percent of organizations rejecting adoption of cloud technology in the near future, but at the same time 30 percent of that 13 percent would reconsider their decision if cloud security mechanisms are improved to a standard they were comfortable with.

Moving forward

Adoption of emerging and innovative new security solutions continues to gain appeal, with 30 percent of organizations already taking advantage of improved cloud security and a further 40 percent ready to invest in additional security guarantees, if offered.

Overall, some 71 percent of enterprises surveyed perceive continuous auditing of cloud infrastructure as a very important part of their security arrangements in an effort to constantly ensure data integrity in the cloud.

“We wanted to find out the exact reasons that prevent companies from cloud adoption and taking advantage of all the benefits it offers,” Netwrix Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Alex Vovk said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE.

“The survey revealed the interesting fact that even though the cloud is not a new technology, the cloud market has a good potential to grow further,” he said. “Advanced security solutions and true visibility into what is going on across the cloud infrastructure will help companies minimize security risks, take back control over business-critical assets and accelerate cloud adoption.”

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