Skyhigh: Cloud service providers are becoming more secure, even if enterprises still need to train employees on how to reduce risk of data loss
Data from Skyhigh’s latest cloud adoption and risk report in Europe, which collates data from over 15 million enterprise employees, suggests the average employee in Europe uses 23 different cloud services, a record high the firm said. But Kamal Shah, vice president of products and marketing at Skyhigh said that while cloud services are apparently more secure than ever, shadow IT risks persist.
The average European company had 782 cloud services in use in Q4 2014, up from 588 in Q1 2014, mostly due to a significant growth in the use of cloud-based collaboration platforms and development services.
But 37 per cent of those using cloud-based file sharing and collaboration platforms reported putting sensitive or confidential data on those platforms, including personally identifiable information such as social security number, date of birth, or address; payment information, such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers; or protected health information such as medical record number or health plan beneficiary number.
“2014 will go down as the year of the cloud’s arrival as a fundamental tool for the Global 5000 enterprise,” Shah said.
“The average European employee uses 23 cloud services, many of which represent unsanctioned or shadow IT and highlight the growing risk and opportunity for IT teams to securely enable cloud services within their organisations.”
While Shah pointed out the added shadow IT risk it’s clear cloud providers have on the whole taken large strides towards making their services more secure. The firm said the number of cloud service providers investing in key security capabilities more than doubled in 2014: 1,082 (11 per cent of all services) encrypt data at rest versus 470 in Q4 2013; 1,459 (17 per cent) offer multi-factor authentication compared with 705 in Q4 2013; and 533 (5 per cent) hold ISO 27001 certification compared with 188 in Q4 2013.