UK businesses not deterred by cyber-threats; want gov’t to help with cloud adoption

As Britain leaves the European Union, businesses in the sovereign state want financially stable cloud providers and prefer those that store data locally and offer local support, according to a recent survey.

An independent research commissioned by business-solutions vendor Advanced (conducted by Techmarketview) uncovers some interesting facts about UK organisations’ attitudes to using the Cloud as part of their digital transformation plans.

Polling more than 500 senior executives in different UK organizations, the survey revealed that 80% are not deterred by high-profile cyber attacks like WannaCry. However, the vast majority of organisations are concerned about security (82%) and data protection (68%) in the cloud.

Businesses want better support in their efforts to execute their digital transformation plans, with security cited as the biggest barrier by 76% of organizations. Those surveyed say they want governments to do more to protect businesses against cyber-threats.

“It’s encouraging to see businesses are undeterred from using the Cloud, which is fast becoming the right choice for many to drive efficiencies, innovate and grow,” said Jon Wrennall, CTO at Advanced. “Sadly we are seeing the same concerns around security and data protection reported over and over again. It’s right to be concerned about security; it’s time that all of us as cloud services providers take a reality check.

One third of organisations claim to be cloud-savvy as they consider it for all new projects. 37% have recently launched their first-ever cloud computing projects.

82% want cloud vendors to build trust among businesses deploying a transformation strategy, citing financial stability (69%), data stored locally (65%) and local support (58%) as what they look for most in a provider. Scalability is also a key requirement among 46% of organizations, while 38% want a breadth of cloud application offerings.

In a survey of US, UK and German IT decision makers, Bitdefender found that half of IT decision makers in the US see cloud as more secure than on-premise infrastructure, while the majority in Germany and the UK are more inclined to trust their own data centers.

The majority of companies in all three countries prefer hybrid infrastructures for their greater flexibility and scalability, increased productivity, superior storage capacity, and lower costs. The most trusted cloud vendors are found in the US, Canada, and England in that order. The least trusted clouds are in India and Singapore.

Companies prefer to avoid cloud storage when it comes to information about clients and employees, research data about new products, as well as financial information.

Cloud security is something security vendors have been increasingly preoccupied with since businesses set their sights on technology to augment their operations. Clients seek support for their mobile workforce and many prefer a hybrid cloud that secures their data while at the same time gets rid of the silos.

Clients also seek a solution that combines optimized protection for virtualized environments with high-strength cloud security, as well as endpoint security. Deploying and managing protection for physical, virtual or mobile endpoints is key to fostering growth through technology.