Improved trust and security are critical to encouraging continued adoption of the cloud.
This is according to the recent Intel report, Blue Skies Ahead? The State of Cloud Adoption, for which 1 200 IT decision-makers from eight countries were interviewed.
The report found most IT security professionals don't trust the cloud to protect sensitive data, and they're not entirely certain executives realise the dangers.
Maintaining compliance in the cloud is the biggest concern, across all types of cloud deployment, says Intel, adding the real challenge is around visibility.
About 77% of respondents say their organisations trust cloud computing more than a year ago, just 13% completely trust public cloud providers to secure sensitive data.
Also, only 34% of respondents believe C-level executives and senior management understand security risks of the cloud.
Securing shadow IT continues to be a major challenge, says Intel. Fifty two percent of the lines of business still expect IT to secure their unauthorised department-sourced cloud services.
Trust is growing in cloud providers and services, but 72% of respondents point to cloud compliance as their greatest concern, says Rolf Haas, enterprise technology specialist, network security and content division at Intel Security.
This is due to the current lack of visibility around cloud usage and where cloud data is being stored, he adds.
Research firm Everest Group, says the focus of enterprises in driving digital adoption within their businesses is pushing the cloud services boundaries in terms of their role in the broader ecosystem.
"This is a new era for cloud providers," said Raj Samani, chief technology officer, Intel Security EMEA. "We are at the tipping point of investment and adoption, expanding rapidly as trust in cloud computing and cloud providers grows."
The rapid adoption of cloud-based products, tools and services across global enterprises has led to a sharp increase in the need to protect these assets from security threats, says CipherCloud.
Tools and systems that were made available to organisations during the early onset of cloud computing have garnered the largest market share for their associated cloud applications: accordingly these tools are also at most risk of external cyber attack, it adds.
Compliance and data protection concerns remain top barriers for cloud adoption, notes CipherCloud. It points out regulatory compliance requirements such as data residency and information security standards continue to be the top challenges for enterprises moving to the cloud.
Haas says to compete today, businesses need to rapidly adopt and deploy new cloud services, to both scale up or down in response to demand and meet the ever-evolving needs and expectations of employees and customers.
This newfound optimism for the cloud inevitably means more critical and sensitive data is put into cloud services - and that means security is going to become a massive issue, concludes Haas.
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