Cloud Security Outlook 2023 confirms the ‘continued surge in cloud adoption’ but highlights associated security and resilience issues
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- Published: Thursday, 02 February 2023 09:45
ManageEngine has announced results from its new study, Cloud Security Outlook 2023. The study highlights a surge in cloud adoption with 72 percent of respondents using multi-cloud applications and another 5 percent using hybrid cloud systems. The adoption rate will further increase in 2023 and 2024 because 23 percent of respondents are planning to move to the cloud in the next 24 months.
The study also found that enterprises have a limited number of analysts running their security operations centers / centres (SOCs) and are deploying multiple tools in an attempt to address their cloud security challenges.
Amid this situation, enterprises are being forced to tackle numerous cloud security threats, including compromised accounts. Enterprises are hampered by short-staffed SOCs, which has led to concerns about their cloud security resilience.
The ManageEngine study further revealed that enterprises are finding it increasingly difficult to gain visibility into cloud activities and comply with various stringent regulations. Nearly half (48 percent) of respondents find compliance with cyber security laws, especially those related to the cloud, to be highly challenging.
These factors are driving enterprises to adopt a consolidated security architecture that facilitates streamlined, efficient security operations. 97 percent of respondents will be evaluating a solution that provides all security functions in a single console in 2023.
“The adoption of CASBs and SIEM platforms helps enterprises ensure security and integrity. However, having different tool sets leads to a visibility gap and complicates cloud security management amid unpredictable threats," said Manikandan Thangaraj, vice president of ManageEngine. "Cyber resilience refers to the ability of an organization to ensure business continuity in the event of a cyber attack with the help of business processes and tools. Cloud security resilience, therefore, requires enterprises to have visibility, enhanced policy enforcement, infection isolation and impact neutralization from a unified security architecture."
The findings of the survey indicate that:
A lack of staffing and orchestration makes the security process complicated.
- Most respondents (84 percent) stated they either have fewer than five security analysts or don't have dedicated analysts at all to run their SOCs.
- 94 percent of respondents use different security tools to protect data, monitor user access, adhere to compliance mandates and gain visibility into cloud platforms.
The three most common and impactful cloud security threats are identity-based.
- The IT professionals surveyed stated that cloud account compromise is the most common and impactful cloud security threat (35 percent), followed by external cloud account exploits (23 percent) and unauthorized access and account compromise by insiders (14 percent).
Compliance proving to be challenging for enterprises.
- About half (48 percent) of those who monitor their cloud access or have hybrid cloud systems deployed said that the process of ensuring compliance is highly challenging. Another 37 percent acknowledged that it is tough, but manageable.
- Only 16 percent of respondents said that they are all sorted when it comes to compliance with cyber security laws, especially those related to the cloud.
Survey methodology
ManageEngine commissioned Censuswide, an independent market research agency, to study the cloud landscape and the market demand for cloud security tools. Around 500 IT professionals in the US were surveyed, spanning various industries, including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and government.
