Businesses urged to consider cloud security

Network improvements aren't the only thing that need assessing before moving onto the cloud. Recent research has also highlighted the importance of security assessment when making the change.

A recent report from Venafi has found that the majority of companies and organisations are unaware of best security practices. Evaluating 420 enterprises and government agencies, the research found that 64 per cent of those questioned failed to encrypt all cloud data and cloud transactions. Many cloud applications do not encrypt by default so it is worth enabling third-party technologies to enhance security.

Meanwhile, 77 per cent of organisations failed to perform quarterly security and compliance training, increasing the number of opportunities for human error. However, groups did appear to perform quite well when it came to encrypting through an organisation itself; just ten per cent of those surveyed failed to do this.

Jeff Hudson, chief executive of Venafi, commented on the findings: "The biggest security struggle organisations face today is managing the unknown - aka the unquantified and unmanaged risks. Your best security assets can easily turn into liabilities if not managed properly.

"If this assessment demonstrates anything, it's that IT and security departments have got to gain greater visibility over all of their security and compliance activities, and take steps to better understand and manage them."

However, the research comes after Richard Spires, CIO of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the US, stated that the cloud is set to grow in the coming years as security problems are tackled by vendors. "I am a believer that we are going to, over the next few years, really solve a lot of the cybersecurity concerns that we have with cloud-based services," he said.

While security is vital, it is worth assessing the network itself before moving to cloud computing. hSo provides managed networks designed for business. To get a cost for a leased line at your location, visit our online leased line price checker.

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