The cloud is creating configuration and data visibility problems, according to a report from the Cloud Security Alliance, an organization that defines best practices for cloud security and AlgoSec, a provider of network and security management products.
The report is based on a survey of 700 IT and security professionals worldwide. When asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 4 those aspects of managing security in public clouds that they found challenging, respondents cited proactively detecting misconfigurations and security risks as the biggest challenge (3.35).
That was followed by a lack of visibility into the entire cloud estate (3.21), audit preparation and compliance (3.16), holistic management of cloud and on-premises environments (3.1), and managing multiple clouds (3.09).
Some 43 percent of the respondents said they had a network or application outage, with the leading causes being operational or human errors in management of devices (20 percent), device configuration changes (15 percent), and device faults (12 percent).
Respondents identified compliance (57 percent) and legal challenges (44 percent) as major concerns when moving into the cloud, and 81 percent of cloud users said they encountered significant security concerns.
“As companies of all sizes are taking advantage of the value of the cloud with its improved agility and flexibility, they are also facing unique new security concerns, especially when integrating multiple cloud services and platforms into an already complex IT environment,” said John Yeoh, vice president of research at CSA.
