Lack of visibility leads to cloud storage security issues

A lack of visibility into an organization's use of cloud providers can lead to unauthorized access to data, improper handling and storage of data and unauthorized data removal. As a result, organizations are left exposed and vulnerable to a data breach.

This is among the findings of a new report from the Blancco Technology Group. Based on a survey of almost 300 IT professionals around the world it finds that 26 percent of organizations are either 'not confident' or only 'somewhat confident' about their IT teams' knowledge of the use of all cloud storage providers.

This is despite the fact that the cloud is widely used, with 89 percent of those surveyed saying they use between one and 15 private cloud storage providers and 92 percent using up to 15 public cloud storage providers.

To make things worse, 15 percent of organizations say they rarely or never conduct audits of cloud providers who are storing their corporate data. Yet 40 percent believe storing corporate data in a cloud environment increases their compliance risk.

When asked to rank cloud security threats in terms of their company’s priority -- specific to budgets, resources and tools -- respondents cited advanced persistent threats, compromised credentials and hacked interfaces/APIs as being their top priorities.

Richard Stiennon, chief strategy officer of Blancco Technology Group, says enterprises need to be conducting cloud compliance audits on a regular basis. "Whenever storing data offsite with a cloud provider, organizations must be diligent in knowing where their data is being stored, how it’s being protected and when it needs to be removed (in the case of migrating data to a new vendor or consolidating data centers, for example). A cloud compliance audit should include a review of policies and procedures that the cloud storage provider applies to your data, the technical solutions in place to protect your data and the skills of technical or business staff responsible for your data".

You can read more on the study's findings in the full report which is available to download from the Blancco website.

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