Almost half of IT people are deterred from keeping sensitive data in the cloud because of fear of government intervention and possible legal action. That is according to a new survey from Lieberman Software.
The survey, which looked at IT and cloud workers’ attitudes to storing data in the cloud, suggested that government and legal interference puts 48 per cent of them off from entering the cloud environment. These figures suggest that IT managers are deterred from the Cloud, because they are unsure if their organisation’s sensitive data is adequately protected and so will pass IT security audits or indeed government regulatory checks which hosted cloud environments are subjected to.
Commenting on the research
Philip Lieberman, President and CEO of Lieberman Software, said: “There are a number of reasons why IT experts might be apprehensive about storing corporate data in the cloud. However, in my opinion, the key issues are around Government surveillance, cloud legislation and data security. IT managers fear that they will put their data at risk by moving to a cloud provider as they are unsure they will keep the data properly protected, which could ultimately affect their job and their business.
“The other issue is around legislation in the cloud and the fact that IT managers do not want governments snooping around in their corporate data. If a government or official body wanted to see what data a company was holding in the cloud, the cloud host involved would be legally obliged to provide them with access. This means there is very limited privacy in cloud environments. IT managers know it is much easier to hide data within their own private networks.”
Other findings
Other results from the survey suggested that 88pc think there is a chance that some of its organisations data hosted in the cloud could be lost, corrupted or accessed by unauthorised individuals, 86pc don’t trust the cloud for their organisation’s more sensitive data and 51pc of those surveyed don’t trust the cloud for any of their personal data. The survey was conducted at the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Congress amongst 300 IT people: 70pc of survey participants were from companies with more than 1,000 employees, and half had more than 5,000 employees.
