One in four have had data stolen from public cloud

A quarter of organisations that use public cloud services have suffered data theft, according to new research.

Out of the 1,400 IT professionals surveyed by McAfee in the final quarter of 2017, a fifth had experienced an advanced attack against its public cloud infrastructure.

This is especially concerning as the vast majority of organisations (97 per cent) use cloud services of some sort, with 83 per cent storing sensitive data in the public cloud. Only 16 per cent said they store no sensitive data in the cloud.

The study found that a lack of adequate visibility and control is the greatest challenge to cloud adoption in an organisation. However, many are quick to brush aside these gripes due to the compelling business value of the cloud.

A shortage of cyber security skills and its impact on cloud adoption continues to decrease, as the proportion of respondents reporting no skills shortage increased from 15 per cent in last year’s survey to 24 per cent this year.

Rajiv Gupta, senior vice president of McAfee’s cloud security business unit, said: “Despite the clear prevalence of security incidents occurring in the cloud, enterprise cloud adoption is pressing on.

“By implementing security measures that allow organisations to regain visibility and control of their data in the cloud, businesses can leverage the cloud to accelerate their business and improve the security of their data.”