Securing the cloud may be tough — but it’s the future

Most security professionals think securing data in the cloud is harder than keeping on-premises systems safe, but they’re preparing for a cloudy future regardless.

Of 130 security professionals polled at the 2014 RSA conference, 74% view cloud security as a bigger concern this year than in 2013, according to a survey by cloud data protection company PerSpecsys. 66% think the cloud is substantially more difficult to secure than on-premise options.

Part of the difficulty stems from those pesky employees who want to use their cloud apps everywhere, regardless of company policy. Nearly 31% of respondents said their organizations don’t allow employees to access cloud apps like Dropbox and Salesforce on their mobile devices, but they do it anyway. They also said that 34% of organizations don’t use any cloud encryption or tokenization.

“[That] data reinforces that simply blocking access isn’t an option,” said PerspecSys CEO David Canellos in a statement. “It’s time to be proactive and put long-trusted security tools such as encryption and tokenization in place to make sure that no matter where your data is, it is protected.”

For more insight from the survey, check out the infographic below.