Looming security concerns are beginning to threaten enterprise adoption of cloud computing, according to a pair of reports released today.
A survey produced by the non-profit Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and the IEEE professional association showed that 82% of IT professionals consider the development and adoption of cloud computing security standards urgent.
At the same time, the CSA and Hewlett-Packard released their “Top Threats to Cloud Computing Report,” which calls security the number one barrier to cloud computing adoption and identifies several classes of security threats against which enterprises adopting cloud computing must protect themselves. Both reports were made public at the annual RSA Conference on security being held this week in San Francisco.
“It’s clear from the survey’s findings that enterprises across sectors are eager to adopt cloud computing, but that security standards are needed both to accelerate cloud adoption on a wide scale and to respond to regulatory drivers,” said Jim Reavis, founder and executive director of CSA, in a prepared statement. “Cloud computing is shaping the future of IT, but, as this study shows in a variety of ways, the absence of a compliance environment is having a dramatic impact on cloud computing’s growth.”