Just over half of data professionals who work in cloud computing do not trust cloud services for any of their personal data, a survey has revealed.
Some 86% of those polled by security and identity management firm Lieberman Software said they do not trust the cloud for their organisation’s more sensitive data, and 88% said that they believe that there is a chance that the data their organisation keeps in the cloud could be lost, corrupted or accessed by unauthorised individuals.
However, 46% of survey respondents still believe that their move to the cloud has increased their organisation’s data security.
The vast majority of respondents (91%) said the move to cloud services has been more convenient for their organisation’s in-house IT team, 56% said it has saved the company money, and 86% said their organisation’s cloud deployment has been successful.
Lieberman Software chief executive Philip Lieberman said the results of the survey highlight the challenge that companies face.
“We can see that cloud deployments have delivered significant benefits for many organisations, but there are still some very real security concerns. The fact that so many of the people we spoke to don’t trust any of their personal data to the cloud, shows just how deep rooted these concerns are,” he said.
According to Lieberman, cloud service providers need to demonstrate how seriously they take security and the lengths they are going to in order to safeguard sensitive data from access by unauthorised individuals.
“Customers should be asking their cloud providers to prove the security controls they have in place, and how they guarantee compliance with the same standards – FISMA, PCI-DSS, SOX and other mandates – that are enforced in the customers’ own data-centres,” he said.
