Four in 10 Companies Fear Losing Data Control in the Cloud, Study Shows

Some 65% of companies cite security and 40% cite loss of physical control over data as leading concerns associated with cloud technology, according to a survey by Netwrix. These fears are followed by dependency on internet connections, compliance and disaster recovery issues.

Most companies feel that the cloud is insecure because it lacks visibility into user activities; they would never know what is going on. Companies are afraid migration to the cloud would increase risks of unauthorized access (69% of companies) and account hijacking (43%), the paper shows.

A hybrid cloud deployment model is considered the best way to exploit cloud technology without significant security risk, as 44% of respondents would prefer it when first using cloud technology. Private clouds follow, with 37% of organizations ready to invest in private cloud infrastructures for additional security, respondents say.

According to the survey, SMBs value business continuity almost as highly as enterprises and do not trust cloud technologies. Losing an opportunity for quick disaster recovery in case of any incident is SMBs’ next concern related to the cloud. Small and mid-sized companies also expect costs on cloud migration will exceed their budgetary expectations. Overall, 65% of SMBs and 71% of enterprises perceive continuous auditing of cloud infrastructure as a very important part of security guarantees that could ensure data integrity in the cloud. About 28% of organizations think cloud infrastructure auditing is a somewhat important part.

Medium and large enterprises value auditing even more due to bigger IT environments that require more granular control over critical changes and activity of privileged users

The survey conducted in Q3 2015 included IT professionals from 611 companies, representing 24 industries.