Cloud security presents challenges for businesses
A recent report has found that despite the rise in cloud and multi-cloud adoption, almost half New Zealand businesses believe cloud privacy and data protection is harder to manage than on-premises.
The 2022 Thales Cloud Security Report conducted by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, found one in five New Zealand businesses now use over 100 software as a service (Saas) applications, yet in the past 12 months, 38 percent of New Zealand businesses have experienced a cloud-based data breach or failed audit.
Brian Grant, ANZ Director at Thales, says due to the pandemic, business leaders reacted quickly and leapt into cloud delivered digital services without properly examining how to secure these.
“For many, this surge towards a ‘cloudfirst’ approach meant security and safety became afterthoughts, and there’s no point being the fastest car on the racetrack if you crash on the first corner.”
New Zealand IT professionals view encryption as a key component of security control.
Most survey respondents cited encryption, tokenisation authentication, and key management as the security technologies they currently use to protect sensitive data in the cloud. However, when asked what percentage of their data in the cloud is encrypted, only one in ten (9 percent) respondents said between 81-100 percent.