• 31 percent don't trust the cloud vendor's security stance
• 28 percent cited compliance and regulatory concerns
• 22 percent were concerned over a lack of control
• 19 percent said cloud services haven't matured yet

Despite clear data security concerns, the majority (59 percent) of survey respondents said that cloud computing is a must for their company's operations, and another 50 percent agreed that the cloud will become more important in the future. As these numbers suggest, growing cloud adoption rates may be inevitable in the future of the technology world, but that doesn't mean organizations should remain idle and lose complete control over their information security postures. Instead, businesses can deploy data encryption software to safely migrate assets to the cloud.

Ambiguous cloud contracts
Another factor that could lead to more secure cloud deployments is performing a little due diligence before signing the contract. Speaking with Network World, Gartner analyst Jay Heiser said the cloud industry has been slow in responding to common concerns. For example, he said, cloud providers will often use robust security as a selling point, but fail to actually provide evidence to show their customers' information is effectively guarded.

"It remains a common complaint that cloud service providers are being ambiguous around what they're specifically doing to protect customers," Heiser told Network World.

The data security responsibility isn't and shouldn't be entirely with the provider, though. As Heiser noted, companies can do significantly more to protect their data. One of the hurdles in the way of many successful cloud deployments is the lack of clear data classification. Without knowing how sensitive the information they want to migrate is, decision makers can't make an informed choice when selecting a cloud vendor. Heiser also suggested that "heroic efforts" - including file encryption and data loss prevention practices - should be taken to protect the highest priority information.