Enterprises are increasing considering moving mission-critical resources to the cloud in order to reduce overhead and capital expenses as well as enjoy the flexibility to launch applications as they see fit. However, questions about the quality of data security in the cloud have persisted since day one. These concerns are especially valid when considering the deployment of public cloud solutions. Businesses that store sensitive files on a public cloud server are trusting third-party vendors to prevent hackers from accessing those networks.

A recent survey conducted by NetIQ suggested that views on data security in the cloud are mixed among IT executives. The most encouraging news for cloud adopters was that 51 percent of respondents believed that cloud solutions increase an enterprise's overall data security. However, the report's other findings belie this claim. Seventy percent of the survey's participants said that consumer cloud services presented a risk to the security of their company's sensitive data. Many IT executives reported skepticism regarding the ability of cloud vendors to provide adequate protection for information stored on their servers, with 45 percent of respondents saying that they lacked confidence in their cloud provider's ability to meet their data security requirements.

A significant portion of survey participants also reported compliance issues as a major concern regarding cloud adoption. Forty-two percent of IT executives were not fully confident that their cloud storage initiatives were in line with government or industry regulations regarding data protection.

Rogue clouds threaten data security and control
Another issue commonly cited by respondents was a perceived inability to completely control the spread of information in the cloud. Forty-five percent said they did have a full range of data visibility when users signed up for services on their own. These findings reflect a growing concern from enterprise IT teams about the threat presented by rogue clouds. PMG, a business process automation vendor, recently released a study examining corporate views on the bring-your-own-application phenomenon, Forbes reported. Employees are increasingly utilizing public cloud services for business use, including DropBox and Skype without the approval of IT teams. Seventy percent of the survey's respondents cited public cloud storage as a threat to data security.

Download Viivo

If you share & store it in Dropbox, secure it with Viivo

To protect information stored in the cloud, businesses should implement sturdy data encryption software solutions. Cloud providers may not be able to offer sufficient protection for sensitive company information, and enterprises should not trust them to do so. Employing encryption techniques will prevent hackers from accessing corporate data files. Additionally, IT teams should encourage employees that upload company information to the cloud to encrypt and secure the files.