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Today’s Breach Report Shows Signs of Cloud Adoption

By Derek Tumulak, vice president of product management, Vormetric

The last few years have seen skyrocketing rates of both the number and severity of data
breaches, the radical expansion of state sponsored cyberattacks and a nearly unchecked
expansion in a whole ecosystem of suppliers for criminal hacking. Into this increasingly risky
environment for sensitive data that organizations need to consider is another factor – increasing
use of the cloud.

Organizations are adopting cloud usage at record rates – with 80 percent or more globally now
using cloud resources. Business efficiency and adaptability drive organizations to cloud usage
but leave many organizations scratching their heads wondering how much trust in the cloud is
just too much. It’s no secret that despite the vast benefits, some enterprises have been hesitant
to make the shift to cloud computing.

In our cloud and big data edition of the 2015 Vormetric Insider Threat Report, we surveyed over
800 senior business managers and IT professionals to get insight into the increasing security,
risk and compliance concerns that organizations face on a daily basis. The core finding?
Decision makers at enterprises worldwide have serious concerns about relinquishing control
when it comes to security. Locations with the most stored sensitive data include:

1. Databases (49 percent)
2. File servers (39 percent)
3. Cloud service environments (36 percent)

A Goldman Sachs study projects cloud computing infrastructure and platform spending will grow
at a 30 percent CAGR from 2013 through 2018 compared with 5 percent growth for the overall
enterprise IT. Cloud growth is unarguable. However, despite this growth, cloud environments
(46 percent) outpace databases (37 percent) and file servers (29 percent) as the location
perceived as being the greatest risk by enterprise organizations.

Although these numbers indicate that the benefits from cloud platforms are driving adoption, 46
percent express concerns that market pressures are forcing them to use cloud services.

Additionally, the risks associated with big data initiatives (31 percent) are now seen as greater
than that of file server environments.

Let’s look at that data more closely. Cloud is right behind traditional on premise database and
file servers when it comes to the most popular locations for storing sensitive data. As
enterprises were not too long ago testing out development and test environments, the security
landscape has really shifted. Contrast this also with our findings in 2013 – data residing on
employee PCs was the top worry at 49 percent.

Adoption and concerns are going hand in hand – as enterprises adopt cloud it moves higher on
their list of concerns. Most of the data in play is sensitive, regulated or legally controlled
information.

16 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2015 Edition
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