Australian businesses lack cloud confidence

Three in four Australian businesses are adopting cloud-based storage and web applications, yet their confidence in the cloud remains low.

A survey of IT decision-makers conducted by BT shows that data security is the main concern with cloud services, shared by 84% of the Australian respondents.

Some 62% of Australian respondents have the impression that all cloud services are inherently insecure and 40% admit they are “very or extremely anxious” about the security implications posed by cloud services.

Trusting a third party is also a concern for 70% of Australian IT decision-makers. These fears may not be unfounded, with 53% of Australians surveyed stating they had suffered a data breach where their cloud service provider was to blame.

“The survey has exposed an interesting paradox. On the one hand, decision-makers are concerned about the security implications of using public cloud services, but on the other, their buying decisions seem to be driven by short-term cost perceptions,” BT Security President Mark Hughes said.

One issue is the fact that 61% of Australian IT leaders surveyed state that they have adopted mass-market consumer cloud services, rather than those tailored to the enterprise, he said.

“We invite these decision-makers to also weigh up the reputational cost and impact on their brand of a cloud security breach. Enterprise cloud applications and services are designed to help businesses realise the possibilities in the cloud while substantially decreasing risk.”

Image courtesy of Fiona Henderson under CC