Report highlights 46 per cent of Indian IT professionals consider all corporate cloud data as sensitive

Nearly half (46%) of Indian IT and security professionals report that all corporate data stored in the Cloud is sensitive, according to a new report released on Wednesday. The findings by IT company Thales indicate that Cloud security spending now surpasses all other security spending categories.

The report highlights that approximately 37% of organisations in India have experienced a Cloud data breach, with 14% occurring within the past year (2023). Ashish Saraf, VP and Country Director at Thales in India, emphasised the centrality of Cloud to organisational security strategies. "The scalability and flexibility that the Cloud offers are highly compelling for organisations, so it’s no surprise it is central to their security strategies," Saraf said.

Urgent Need for Enhanced Cloud Security

Saraf further stressed the importance of addressing Cloud security challenges. "With India continuously progressing in digital technology and data sovereignty and privacy emerging as top concerns in this year’s research, it is vital to solve these challenges of Cloud security now to ensure a secured and trusted future for all," he added.

Survey Insights

The report surveyed nearly 3,000 IT and security professionals across 18 countries and 37 industries. It revealed that Cloud resources have become prime targets for cyberattacks. In India, Cloud storage (30%), SaaS applications (30%), and Cloud management infrastructure (28%) were identified as the leading categories of attacks.

Human error and misconfiguration were identified as the top root causes for data breaches (34%), followed by exploiting previously unknown vulnerabilities (32%), known vulnerabilities (21%), and failure to use Multi-Factor Authentication (11%).