Cloud security is set to be a major worry for all businesses - here's why

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As businesses rush to transition into cloud-native environments, they're missing key elements

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If it isn’t already, cloud security is about to become every business’ major worry, a new report from Venafi has declared.

Based on a global survey of 800 security and IT leaders from large organizations, it says that Kubernetes is perceived as the go-to platform for application development by 84% of the respondents. However, some 75% worry the speed and complexity of Kubernetes and containers are creating new security blind spots. In fact, more than half (59%) of the respondents who migrated to the cloud admitted they didn’t understand the risks of their endeavor. 

Also, three-quarters (76%) are under the impression the industry is due a major reality check in terms of the cost and security of cloud migrations. More than half of those who migrated apps without refactoring were shocked by the bill and the subsequent cloud sprawl. As a result, 77% reconsidered the migration altogether.

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Security woes

But there is more to this story than just costs and cloud sprawl - more than half (59%) experienced security incidents within Kubernetes or container environments. The most common incidents included network breaches, API vulnerabilities, and certificate misconfigurations. 

Almost a third (30%) of firms that experienced such an incident said it led to a data breach or network compromise. Furthermore, 33% were forced to delay launching an app, 32% have had their app’s services disrupted, and 27% were in violation of compliance laws, as a result. 

Matt Barker, global head of cloud-native services at Venafi, believes we’re heading towards “everything running on cloud-native architecture”, but added that businesses are “underestimating the work needed to deliver efficiency and security” and that they’re rushing to get the job done. 

“As organizations continue to move more critical workloads into cloud-native environments, they need to ensure they close these gaps, or we will see even more breaches and outages.”

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Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.