As cloud hosting becomes more popular and more prevalent among businesses of all shapes and sizes, so do cloud data breaches grow bigger and more painful.
The 2022 Thales Cloud Security Report found almost half (45%) of businesses experienced a cloud-based data breach, or failed audit in the past 12 months, up 5% from 2021. What’s more, a third (32%) have had to notify the government, customers, partners, and employees, of a data breach.
The number of threats is also growing fast. A quarter (26%) have experienced an increase in malware attacks, and ransomware attacks, against their endpoints, while a fifth (19%) spotted more phishing and whaling than a year ago.
Encryption and key management
This growth, the report further states, can be partly attributed to the rising popularity of cloud solutions among business users. In 2021, businesses all around the world were using an average of 110 cloud apps, up from just eight, seven years ago. More and more companies are also opting for multiple IaaS providers, as well.
But with more providers, and more apps, also come rising complexities. The majority (51%) of IT professionals surveyed agreed it has become more complex to manage privacy and data protection in the cloud. Migrating to the cloud has also grown more complex. Right now, just 24% expect to be able to deploy “lift and shift” tactics, which are considered as the simplest of migration tactics, down from 55% just a year ago.
But just because cloud is getting more complex, it doesn’t mean businesses are giving up on it. Quite the contrary – its popularity is only growing. To tackle ongoing issues, businesses are turning their attention towards robust cybersecurity measures, encryption, and key management.
Still, there’s a long road ahead, as just 11% of respondents have between 81% and 100% of their cloud data encrypted.