Cloud: The high cost of account adjustments

A cloud account settlement costs organizations millions of dollars each year, according to a study by the Ponemon Institute.

Cloud services and applications are essential for many businesses. But keeping it out of IT control can be costly. This is one of the lessons of Prof. a study* American from the Ponemon for Proofpoint.

662 IT and security decision-makers from large and medium-sized companies were surveyed. On average, 42% of business data is stored in the cloud. Only 27% are under the control of IT teams. Additionally, 67% of cloud services used by other departments are deployed, under Shadow IT.

However, 50% of respondents believe that the volume and frequency of Cloud account settlements have increased over the past twelve months (64 on average over the year). 68% say the security risks to their business are “significant”.

Accounts Microsoft 365 et Google WorkspaceIn particular, they were severely targeted with brute force or phishing attacks, for 57% of the professionals surveyed.

$ 6.2 million on average

Against this background, the average financial loss from compromised cloud accounts of the organizations surveyed was $ 6.2 million over the past twelve months.

In addition to the resources devoted to resolving the incident, the bill can include costs related to unavailability of services and applications (an average of 138 hours per year), alerts to ecosystem attention, and management Responsibilities With suppliers, loss of profits or fines and potential legal costs.

How to reduce risk, limit accidental sharing of sensitive data, and avoid configuration errors? According to the study authors, organizations are interested in investing in both modified technologies (CASB, Or Cloud Access Security Broker …), and internal skills, without neglecting user awareness and training.

_{Source: Ponemon Institute – “The Cost of Cloud Settlement and Shadow Information Technology”.}

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