More than three-quarters of IT managers felt that a lack of trust in security was the biggest barrier to adoption of cloud computing technologies in their organisations.
The study by IT security service provider SecureData highlighted that although cloud offers many benefits to IT departments there are still huge concerns over how to securely migrate to online services. As a result, over half (59pc) of IT managers thought having a fully outsourced managed security service offering was of importance in order to safely support the roll out and management of cloud technologies.
Furthermore, 67pc of IT managers thought that a Security as a Service (SaaS) provider should be held responsible for any security breaches, highlighting that SaaS providers have a significant responsibility to provide best of breed security.
The research also revealed that nearly half (49pc) of UK businesses are currently running IT services in the cloud due to the many advantages it offers, with the biggest advantage being cost reduction according to 71pc of IT managers.
“The slow adoption by enterprise customers of cloud computing is essentially down to the perceived threats around the cloud,” said Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst at Ovum.
“While multiple surveys report security as the number one reason for a failure to adopt cloud computing from end user organisations, Security as a Service providers prove that the managed services and technology to allay many of these concerns exists.
“Ovum believes that organizations will adopt cloud computing when they have negotiated the internal issues like funding of IT security, and governance and risk management,” Illsley said.
Cloud servers image via Shutterstock
