Bitglass report shows continued disparity between words and actions for cloud security

When all is said and done, there is often a lot more said than done – and this is certainly the case with cloud security. Organisations continue to see it as a key challenge, but what is actually being done to protect environments?

The latest cloud security report from Bitglass continues that theme. The report, which polled 351 respondents, found that almost all (93%) were either ‘moderately’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about the security of the public cloud. Yet less than a third (31%) of those polled used cloud data loss prevention (DLP) tools.

This comes as a stark contrast to the top security concerns cited by respondents. Data leakage was claimed by two thirds (66%) as the biggest issue. DLP policy violations were cited by half of those polled – which may explain the reticence to use them – as well as not being able to maintain visibility into file uploads (50%), download (45%), as well as external sharing in the cloud (55%).

When it came to specific security capabilities deployed in the cloud, response was mixed. Access control, cited by 68% of respondents, was by far the most common response, ahead of anti-virus and anti-malware software (54%) and multi-factor authentication (45%).

Bitglass found three areas of concern; firewalls, cited by 44% of respondents, network encryption (36%) and network monitoring (26%). “Rather than relying upon on-premises tools or limited native controls built into cloud resources like SaaS apps, organisations must utilise specialised security capabilities designed for the cloud,” the report noted.

Intriguingly, the report also found a lack of consensus when it came to the security of public cloud versus on-premises. 45% admitted public cloud apps and SaaS had ‘about the same’ level of security compared with on-prem, while 28% said cloud was more secure and 27% less.

As 2020 draws to a close, many studies have shown how the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated cloud migration – and transformed security strategies with it. A Centrify study, conducted by CensusWide, this month found almost three quarters (73%) of enterprises polled accelerated their cloud migration plans to support the shift to remote working – with 60% adjusting their cloud security postures as a result.

This study looks more at a general view of needing a single pane of glass – naturally of course, just the sort of thing that Bitglass offers. “According to our research 79% of organisations already believe it would be helpful to have a consolidated security platform,” said Anurag Kahol, Bitglass CTO. “Now they just need to choose and implement the right one.”

You can read the full report here (email required).

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