More than Half of Enterprises Are Not Equipped to Operate in the Cloud Securely, Study Shows

Most enterprises believe embracing the public cloud is critical to innovation, but few are equipped to operate in the cloud securely, according to a new report.

85% of businesses agree that cloud deployments are fueling revenue streams while giving them an edge over competitors, but only 40% have adopted an approach to managing cloud and container security, according to a survey of nearly 2,000 IT professionals by DivvyCloud.

Only 58% said their organization has clear guidelines and policies for developers building applications and operating in the public cloud. Of those, half said the policies are not enforced, while 17% said their organization lacks clear guidelines entirely. Furthermore, 49% of respondents said their developers and engineers at times ignore or circumvent cloud security and compliance policies.

Researchers say this discrepancy has its roots in an antiquated view that IT decision makers somehow must choose between innovation and security. They don’t.

“By employing the necessary people, processes, and systems at the same time as cloud adoption (not weeks, months, or years later), enterprises can reap the benefits of the cloud while ensuring continuous security and compliance,” researchers said.

Bitdefender has engineered GravityZone to cater to virtualized and cloud workloads, as legacy security designed to protect physical end-user devices does not suit software-defined and cloud environments. GravityZone combines next-generation security capabilities, such as patch management, application control, memory protection, exploit prevention, behavioral monitoring, tunable machine learning, network sandboxing and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), into one centrally managed solution covering all physical, virtual and cloud endpoints in the enterprise.

Prospecting buyers can download a free copy of the Gartner® 2019 Market Guide for Cloud-Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) to help navigate the complexity of cloud-workload protection and develop a strategy to effectively and efficiently secure datacenter and cloud environments.