©AzmanJaka/ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK
To understand members’ current use of cloud solutions, plans for cloud initiatives and any related security concerns, FERF, in collaboration with Oracle, has launched a Cloud security survey.
Cloud use is expanding rapidly, as companies balance the cost and operational advantages against potential security concerns.
In his analysis of the responses to Gartner’s 2015 Technology Issues survey of FEI members, John Van Decker notes cloud interest has increased significantly. “All of the business applications have increased from 2014 to 2015, with the exception of travel expense management, which held constant at 55 percent,” he reports.
However, there are many reasons why firms are reluctant to move more applications to the cloud. “We asked respondents to offer reasons why they have pushed the movement to cloud for more than half of their transactions out to 2018 or later,” says Van Decker. “When we categorized these answers, we found that security is the major area of concern.”
Other surveys report similar concerns. The Cloud Security Spotlight Report, 2015 published by Crowd Research Partners, notes security is still the biggest perceived barrier to further cloud adoption. “Nine out of 10 organizations are very or moderately concerned about public cloud security.” This report is based on comprehensive research in cooperation with the 250,000+ member Information Security Community on LinkedIn. Their objective was to explore the specific drivers and risk factors of cloud infrastructure, and how organizations are responding to the security threats in these environments.
Almost three-quarters (71 percent) of the survey respondents were either in planning stages, actively implementing or in production cloud environments:
The dominant cloud security concerns involve unauthorized access, hijacking of accounts, and malicious insiders. Almost 80 percent of managers are concerned about personal cloud storage services operated by employees or visitors.
Most of the responses to the Cloud Research Partners survey were from IT and operations professionals. The FERF survey is for finance professionals. We welcome your participation.