One in four IT chiefs thinks cloud security fears are overhyped

A Cloud Watch report from Cisco asked 250 IT decision makers about their attitudes to the cloud

Despite many reports arguing that security is a barrier to cloud adoption, one in four IT decision makers believes cloud offers improved security over in-house IT or managed services.

This is according to a report commissioned by network specialist Cisco, called Cloud Watch, which asked 250 UK IT leaders across five key sectors about their attitudes to the cloud.

The five sectors comprised government, retail, healthcare, finance and service providers.

Despite one in four respondents thinking security fears are misrepresented or over-emphasised, security and privacy concerns are still considered barriers to wider adoption by 76 per cent.

Some 64 per cent mentioned concerns about the location of data, while issues around integration with in-house IT (62 per cent) or other hosted services (60 per cent) were also potential barriers.

Some 56 per cent of businesses believe responsibility for cloud security and new cloud business models should be shared between end user organisations, cloud service providers and application providers.

Other key findings of the report were that that cloud is on the IT agenda for just over half of all companies (52 per cent) but is only considered critical by 7 per cent of organisations.

For the 52 per cent of companies where cloud is on the agenda, 74 per cent are planning to invest in the next 12 months.

The most used cloud services, according to the report, are web conferencing, videoconferencing and unified communcations, at 72, 71 and 68 per cent respectively.

Ian Foddering, CTO of Cisco for UK and Ireland, said: "There are still problems around the perception of cloud services, and these include security and governance.

"But these issues are being addressed.

"The ITU and other bodies are developing standards and adequate governance will address the remaining security concerns."