Report: The State of Cloud Security

Are security risks in the cloud any greater than those in an on-premises environment?

After analyzing 12 months of operational data, cloud security company Alert Logic in its fall report concluded: "Including more than 2 billion events and [more than] 60,000 security incidents," the cloud security company report concluded that neither environment is less secure.

"The results of this study underscore Alert Logic's earlier conclusion that the cloud is as safe as on-premise environments," the report indicated. "Additional analysis shows that the type of infrastructure (service provider versus on-premise) is a better determinant of the type and frequency of attacks than the target's industry segment.

"Web application and brute force attacks were the two most common incident types experienced in both on-premise and service provider environments."

Various forms of threats to security are defined and rated according to their frequency of occurrence. For example, malware is more likely to be a threat to an on-premises system (36 percent) than within cloud service provider system (4 percent). Here are a few other statistics from the report:

Web application attacks:

  • On-premise: 61.4 percent
  • Service providers: 27.8. percent

Brute force attacks:

  • On-premise: 46 percent
  • Cloud providers: 39 percent

("Brute force" is defined as "exploit attempts enumerating a large number of combinations, typically involving numerous credential failures." The example given is password-cracking attempts.)

The report's recommendation: "When selecting cloud service providers, enterprises should consider the rigor and application of these fundamentals in their evaluation process.... It is the quality of management applied to any IT environment that drives good security."

About the Author

Margo Pierce is a Cincinnati-based freelance writer.

Featured

  • glowing brain, connected circuits, and abstract representations of a book and graduation cap on a light gray gradient background

    Snowflake Launches Program to Upskill 100,000 People in Data and AI

    Cloud data platform Snowflake is embarking on an effort to train and certify more than 100,000 users on its AI Data Cloud by 2027. The One Million Minds + One Platform program will provide Snowflake-delivered courses, training materials, and free access to Snowflake software, at no cost to learners.

  • two abstract humanoid figures made of interconnected lines and polygons, glowing slightly against a dark gradient background

    Microsoft Introduces Copilot Chat Agents for Education

    Microsoft recently announced Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, a new pay-as-you-go offering that adds AI agents to its existing free chat tool for Microsoft 365 education customers.

  • hand touching glowing connected dots

    Registration Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Thriving in the Age of AI

    Tech Tactics in Education has officially opened registration for its May 7 virtual conference on "Thriving in the Age of AI." The annual event, brought to you by the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal, offers hands-on learning and interactive discussions on the most critical technology issues and practices across K–12 and higher education.

  • Three cubes of noticeably increasing sizes are arranged in a straight row on a subtle abstract background

    A Sense of Scale

    Gardner Campbell explores the notion of scale in education and shares some of his own experience "playing with scale" — scaling up and/or scaling down — in an English course at VCU.