Just a few years ago, cloud adoption was still perceived by many organisations as the preserve of tech start-ups and agile SMEs. The general consensus in the IT industry was one of wariness about the security of this trending technology vs a traditional, on-premises architecture. However, cloud adoption has rapidly transitioned from being a ‘buzz […]
Just a few years ago, cloud adoption was still perceived by many organisations as the preserve of tech start-ups and agile SMEs. The general consensus in the IT industry was one of wariness about the security of this trending technology vs a traditional, on-premises architecture.
However, cloud adoption has rapidly transitioned from being a ‘buzz word’ to becoming a mainstream choice for organisations looking to benefit from the flexibility, efficiency and economics offered by cloud computing. Despite widescale adoption, there are still pervasive myths surrounding the cloud, specifically about the security it offers.
In February 2018, Barracuda Networks conducted some research across EMEA, APAC and the U.S. to find out more.
According to their findings more than half of respondents (57%) reported that their on-premises security was superior to the cloud. With the majority of IT professionals believing that this is true, the survey went on to find out what was concerning people about moving to the cloud.
Concerns About Cloud Security and Firewalls
More than 8 out of 10 respondents (82%) were concerned about deploying firewalls in the cloud. The two principle concerns cited were:
- ‘Pricing and licensing not appropriate for the cloud’ – 41% agreed.
- ‘No centralised management creating a significant overhead’ – 39% agreed.
Additional concerns included a lack of integration with native tools which should be addressed by cloud vendors, plus next gen firewalls not being a practical solution for the cloud.
Though the findings seem to demonstrate further reluctance for cloud adoption, the survey actually found that 95% of respondents actually thought that firewalls designed specifically for cloud environments would benefit them.
More than 7 out of 10 (71%) cited that such firewall solutions were beneficial because of their integration with automation capabilities, monitoring and cloud management. Over half (59%) said that the fact they were ‘easy to deploy and configure by cloud developers’ was also beneficial.
DevOps and the Cloud
Of those surveyed, more than half had adopted DecOps, DevSecOps or CI/CD procedures with 95% of these organisations saying that they had experienced ‘challenges’ with integrating security with the cloud.
The major barrier to successful integration was overwhelmingly perceived as the limitations of existing security solutions.
Picking up the Pace: Cloud Adoption
Organisations that are willing to work to find a solution with their cloud developers to overcome the issues of integration, will no doubt find the benefits of a cloud environment will put them ahead of the competition.
However, the ‘arms-folded’ gang who are refusing to come to the table to assess the security of the cloud over a traditional data centre architecture are missing out on the potential of, not only capturing the benefits offered by this flexible and agile environment, but also the opportunity to improve security.
Moving to the cloud requires a great deal of improved communication between IT and data security professionals to herald in a new way of thinking about the truth behind the misconceptions of cloud security.
