One in three businesses can't keep up with cloud security

Maintaining security in the cloud and container environments is an increasing problem according to a new survey.

The study by intrusion detection platform Threat Stack finds that 31 percent of those interviewed say they are unable to maintain security as their cloud and container environments grow. As a result, 62 percent say that they’re seeking greater visibility into their public cloud workloads.

57 percent of those surveyed report significant delays in the sales cycle due to trouble meeting customer security requirements. In addition 59 percent report the same issue around meeting customer compliance requirements. This sees nearly one in three of all investments in cloud security now driven by the need to satisfy customer and partner compliance demands.

The survey also shows a shift in cloud use patterns, with 40 percent of environments set to become hybrid in the next year, up from the current 12 percent. Meanwhile, 45 percent of organizations plan to start testing or deploying containerized environments - above the current 42 percent who already do. At the same time, 94 percent of respondents believe containers have negative security implications for their organizations, pointing towards a potential increase in container security investment.

"Companies of all sizes are adopting increasingly more complex technical solutions as the market democratizes what was previously reserved for software giants," says Sam Bisbee, Threat Stack CSO. "This has created an opening for external and internal threats as security teams catch up on cloud, containers, and more. This study's finding that 94 percent of respondents believe containers make them less secure is a phenomenal example of how both technology and security practitioners do not understand the complex technologies they are adopting. Containers originally focused on resource isolation, offering system building blocks to address specific operational needs that could be coupled with security solutions -- they were not supposed to be a replacement for VMs, which is how most teams treat them."

You can read more about the findings on the Threat Stack blog.

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