Thales: Sensitive data is now moving to the cloud

Eighty-two percent of firms would transfer sensitive data into the cloud, despite security fears, research suggests.

According to the Encryption in the Cloud survey, commissioned by security firm Thales, 39 per cent of business and IT decision makers believe cloud has decreased their security posture, while just 10 per cent think the oppposite.

“The assumption was that lots of mundane things had moved [to the] cloud purely for economic benefit, but because of the security concerns ... people would probably shy away from sending any sensitive data into the cloud,” Richard Moulds, VP of product strategy at Thales e-Security told Cloud Pro.

Moulds said the survey results, compiled from the responses of 4,000 business and IT managers, were not what he expected.

“It seems the idea that people are cautiously standing on the sidelines when it comes to sensitive data appears to be a bit of an outdated model. The question now is ‘who is responsible for protecting all this confidential data?’ and what can you do to protect it?” Moulds said.

Of the 49 per cent of respondents who currently transfer sensitive data to the cloud, 44 percent said the cloud service provider should be responsible for protecting it.

Meanwhile, 63 per cent admitted not knowing what cloud providers were doing to carry out this perceived responsibility. Moulds compared this attitude to “an ostrich sticking its head in the sand”.

“I think cloud providers have got to get better at articulating what they are doing to provide security. Even if you accept it’s a shared responsibility, which it probably ought to be, then you still need to know what on earth this cloud provider is doing to protect your data,” said Moulds.