More than half of enterprises believe cloud apps are as secure as on-premise

In the past there's tended to be a perception that running applications in the cloud is less secure than keeping them in-house.

However, a new study by data protection company Bitglass suggests that this view is changing as cloud apps mature. 52 percent of organizations are now confident that cloud apps are as secure as premises-based apps, up from 40 percent a year ago.

Among the report's other findings are that Google continues to lose market share to Microsoft within the enterprise. Now 61 percent of organizations have existing or planned Office 365 deployments, up from 45 percent last year. Google Apps deployments in the meantime are down from 29 percent in 2015 to 26 percent this year.

While cloud apps themselves are seen as secure, user behavior still exposes organizations to leaks. 53 percent of organizations cite unauthorized access as the single biggest threat to cloud security. In addition one in three organizations say external sharing of sensitive information is the biggest security threat. Despite this only 42 percent of organizations have policies against the use of unsanctioned file-sharing apps, up slightly from 36 percent last year.

There's recognition that traditional security isn't coping well with the cloud too, 59 percent of organizations believe their traditional security infrastructure, including next-gen firewalls, is unable to effectively secure data in the cloud. In addition 56 percent of enterprises say they plan to set and enforce security policies across multiple cloud apps with technologies such as Cloud Access Security Brokers.

"IT leaders understand that traditional security tools are not built for the cloud and are limited in their ability to protect data outside the corporate network," says Nat Kausik, CEO of Bitglass. "While major cloud apps invest heavily in security, it is up to the enterprise to ensure secure, compliant use of the cloud - a need that Cloud Access Security Brokers fill".

More information is available in the full report which you can get from the Bitglass website.

Photo Credit: jörg röse-oberreich/Shutterstock