Cloud Insecurities: 43 Percent of Enterprises Surveyed Have had Security Issues With Their Cloud Service Providers

CUPERTINO, Calif., June 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Most enterprises face apprehension over adopting cloud computing, and with good reason: Nearly half (43 percent) of enterprise IT decision makers(1) reported a security lapse or issue with their cloud provider within the last 12 months, according to a recent global cloud security survey conducted by Trend Micro.

The global survey of 1200 U.S., UK, Germany, India, Canada and Japan IT decision makers uncovers the insecurities and concerns surrounding their journey to the cloud. It confirmed that, on the whole, enterprises are moving toward the cloud at a brisk pace and are initiating a giant multiplicative wave of new deployments. Although slightly over 10 percent of the respondents currently have cloud computing projects in production, close to half are either implementing or piloting new cloud applications.

Despite cloud computing's growing popularity in most countries, confusion is still at play among enterprises, some of whom don't recognize what cloud computing services are. When presented with a list of cloud computing services, 93 percent of the respondents said they are currently working with at least one of them. And yet, 7 percent of the same respondents said that their company has no plans to deploy any cloud computing service – a contradiction.

"Based on our data, we see about 5 times more cloud applications coming online in the next few years, yet 43 percent of existing cloud users had a security incident last year. On top of that, some respondents didn't even know they were using the cloud, much less securing it. Given that many cloud service providers do not adequately add IT resources to security, the reality is that securing your cloud environment is not an option, it's a necessity," said Dave Asprey, vice president of cloud security, Trend Micro.

Performance and availability puts the focus on security

While security is still the major hindrance toward cloud adoption, more enterprises are now perceiving performance and availability of cloud services to be of near-equal consideration. According to the survey, the top barriers respondents see in adopting cloud computing services are: Concerns over security of data or cloud infrastructure (50 percent) and performance and availability of cloud service (48 percent).

"In the past, security concerns were the primary inhibitors to cloud adoption. Now, performance and availability have equal influence over IT decision makers. As we witnessed in recent data breach incidents, everything is linked – poor security causes downtime, as well as bad performance," said Asprey.

Data in the cloud is vulnerable without encryption

When it comes to safeguarding sensitive data stored in the cloud, enterprises turn to encryption. 85 percent of respondents(2) said they encrypt data stored in the cloud. And before taking the plunge into cloud adoption, more than half of survey respondents said they would be more likely to consider a cloud provider if encrypted data storage were included in the offering. Nevertheless, most commonly used encryption key management techniques used in the cloud today are vulnerable.

Policy-based key management for better control over cloud-stored data

First introduced last year, the Trend Micro™ SecureCloud™ security platform applies policy-based key-management technology with industry-standard encryption to give control over data stored in public, private or hybrid clouds back to enterprises. It alleviates data security, privacy and compliance risks associated with deploying information into any cloud-computing environment.

SecureCloud's approach enables enterprises to safely and easily deploy data into private or public cloud environments, allowing them to secure sensitive information without having to install a vastly more complex secure file infrastructure.

Trend Micro secures the enterprise journey to the cloud

Trend Micro has invested heavily in a family of multi-layered protection for cloud and virtual environments – all designed to secure the enterprise journey to the cloud.

In addition to SecureCloud, Trend Micro™ Deep Security prevents data theft, business disruptions, and compliance violations with comprehensive server security for today's virtualized datacenter. The latest release of Deep Security includes agent-less anti-malware, virtualization-aware intelligence, and leverages the latest VMware APIs for stronger server protection against data breaches and greater compliance.

"Trend Micro secures enterprises no matter where they are in the cloud journey. Our integrated suite of security solutions stands out because it provides much higher efficiency in cloud and virtualization environments, and our policy-based encryption key management service keeps data secure regardless of where it's stored, from physical servers to virtual environments to public clouds," said Asprey.

Survey methodology

1,200 IT professionals from the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Canada, India and Japan (200 respondents from each of the six countries) were invited to participate in a survey on cloud computing. These professionals, from enterprises with over 500 employees, make purchase decisions for cloud computing services, server virtualization or Virtual Desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions.

Supporting materials

For the complete survey presentation, please visit our media room here.

To join the discussion on cloud computing issues, and to read our cloud evangelist's latest blog piece on the survey, visit the Trend Micro Cloud Security Blog.

To learn more about how Trend Micro can help you in your journey to the cloud, visit www.trendmicro.com/cloud.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated (TSE: 4704), a global cloud security leader, creates a world safe for exchanging digital information with its Internet content security and threat management solutions for businesses and consumers.  A pioneer in server security with over 20 years' experience, we deliver top-ranked client, server and cloud-based security that fits our customers' and partners' needs, stops new threats faster, and protects data in physical, virtualized and cloud environments. Powered by the industry-leading Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Network™ cloud security infrastructure, our products and services stop threats where they emerge – from the Internet. They are supported by 1,000+ threat intelligence experts around the globe. 

Additional information about Trend Micro Incorporated and the products and services are available at Trend Micro.com This Trend Micro news release and other announcements are available at http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/  and as part of an RSS feed at www.trendmicro.com/rss   Or follow our news on Twitter at @TrendMicro.

(1) Those surveyed who indicated they currently use a cloud computing service.

(2) Those who say they are currently deploying a public cloud offering.

SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated