Tech firms are driving force behind investments in cloud data security

IT companies are the driving force behind investments in cloud security, according to a recent survey by Netwrix Corp., a provider of a visibility platform for user behavior analysis and risk mitigation in hybrid IT environments.

The company in November 2017 surveyed 853 worldwide organizations that are public or hybrid cloud users, and found that 80 percent of technology and IT businesses get support from top management for cloud security initiatives. That’s more than any other industry surveyed.

The survey revealed cloud security trends within particular industries. For example, malware is the most feared security threat by healthcare organizations (61 percent) and government entities (60 percent), though it is the number two concern for all industries surveyed.

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A majority of educational institutions (62 percent) perceive their own employees to be the biggest threat to cloud security, the largest share among the industries surveyed. This result is explained by the education sector having the lowest visibility into user activity in the cloud, with only 18 percent saying they are completely aware of their IT staff activity.

Also see: Moving to cloud without security strategy increases data threat

Financial services companies outdo other industries when it comes to visibility into IT staff activity, with 47 percent of them claiming to have complete visibility. They are also the most active cloud users. Nearly all those surveyed (96 percent) already store sensitive data in the cloud.

The retail and wholesale sector sees the biggest threat as hackers (48 percent). This also is the only industry that cited denial-of-service attacks as one of their major concerns.

This story originally appeared in Information Management.
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