Data security, privacy, residency, and compliance issues continue to hinder cloud adoption, with 66 percent of organizations reporting at least one cloud project that has been stopped or delayed due to these factors, according to CipherCloud.


Worries over data leakage topped the list with 52 percent of respondents indicating this was a concern.

“Stalled or cancelled projects are costing companies millions. Many organizations are clearly deploying SaaS or cloud applications first and assessing the risk later,” said Pravin Kothari, founder and chief executive officer at CipherCloud. “These delays and costs can be avoided by bringing in cloud security and privacy experts early during the architecture planning phase of any implementation.”

In considering storing sensitive data in the cloud, the respondents, which were IT professionals with in-depth experience in cloud implementations, indicated concern over these issues:

• Data security - 66%
• Data privacy - 56%
• Compliance - 34%
• Data residency - 26%

The study also showed a high percentage of respondents were also concerned with other specific cloud threats:

• Data leakage - 52%
• Unknown risk profiles - 34%
• Account, service, and traffic hijacking - 32%
• Shared technology vulnerabilities - 32%
• Malicious insiders at cloud providers - 28%
• Insecure programming interfaces - 24%