Businesses concerned over cloud computing security risks
Businesses concerned over cloud computing security risks
New research has revealed that businesses are largely keen to investigate the savings and flexibility offered by cloud computing but many still have concerns about the potential security risks.
A recent study by the Ponemon Institute revealed that just nine per cent of 682 companies surveyed rated their company’s management of cloud computing security as “excellent” whilst 18 per cent thought it was "good" and 27 per cent believed it was "fair". A quarter said security management was “poor” and 21 per cent made no comment on the matter.
In addition, 35 per cent of those surveyed said they believe their company is “vulnerable” to cloud computing risks, whilst 32 per cent believe they are “very vulnerable”. Just nine per cent were confident their company was “not vulnerable”.
Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, said, "We found most IT practitioners and IT security practitioners believe their cloud servers are vulnerable.”
He added, "A second finding is that most IT personnel do not seem to understand the full risk. They basically think some of the issues can be solved by building better firewalls, better antivirus and antimalware solutions."
Of those surveyed by the Ponemon Institute, 61 per cent said they don’t have a cloud server firewall management product in place. The main reasons given were the belief that these products are not scalable and that they’re too expensive and difficult to source.
The most popular cloud provider used by the companies surveyed was Amazon EC2, followed by Windows Azure and Google App Engine. Rackspace and GoGrid completed the top five, although many respondents indicated that they use more than one provider.
Ponemon explained that companies’ reasons for using cloud computing platforms are often related to cost savings and the speed with which they can be up and running, rather than for any security advantages.
He commented: "We know there are some security issues in the cloud environment. Unfortunately, the cloud creates another layer of complexity."
