Organizations feel ready to put highly sensitive data in the cloud

Many corporate employees are ready to store highly sensitive data in the cloud. However, many are still skeptical of the security posture of their own organizations, according to an Armor poll that fielded responses from 37,000 Twitter users over a 13-week period.

Additional key findings show that reducing the cost of managing security, maintaining compliance, and improving incident response capabilities are important pieces of the security puzzle as digital transformation pushes companies toward cloud adoption.

Key takeaways

Companies are comfortable with the cloud. Many respondents (46%) have placed sensitive data in private clouds, and others (41%) are planning to move their most sensitive information to the cloud during the next 2 years.

Shared responsibility is still misunderstood. Compared to the 2017 survey, there has been virtually no change in the percentages of respondents who do not know what shared responsibility means for cloud computing (50% in 2017 and 47% in 2018) and those that define it as part of their core strategy (24% in 2017 versus 21% in 2018).

Organizations want to reduce the cost of security. Just as in last year’s poll, managing security costs is a key priority for poll participants. However, organizations also want to balance that with the need for user monitoring, access management, and configuration management. Choosing a third-party vendor that can offer a cocktail of these capabilities may provide significant cost savings for businesses.

Overall, cybersecurity confidence is not particularly high. Seventy-four percent of respondents admitted having either moderate confidence (34%) or low confidence (40%) in their cybersecurity posture. When asked about the maturity of their threat remediation process, 46% said it is not a focus.

“The #ArmorU poll series demonstrates that businesses are embracing the cloud but are still looking for ways to migrate their sensitive data without leaving behind the compliance and security levels they need,” said Wayne Reynolds, CSO of Armor. “Businesses are nervous about cybersecurity and are looking for solutions that will allow them to move forward with their cloud initiatives with confidence.”