Seven in every 10 ((71%) of Singapore organisations experienced a public cloud security incident over the past year, including ransomware and other malware (66% of local respondents), exposed data (30%), compromised accounts (19%), and cryptojacking (13%), according to The State of Cloud Security 2020 report.
Conducted by Vanson Bourne for Sophos, the study covered more than 3,500 IT managers across 26 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa that currently host data and workloads in the public cloud. Among respondents, 158 were from Singapore.
Globally, firms that are running multi-cloud environments, more likely than not likely, will suffer a cloud security incident than those running a single cloud.
“Ransomware, not surprisingly, is one of the most widely reported cybercrimes in the public cloud. The most successful ransomware attacks include data in the public cloud…and attackers are shifting their methods to target cloud environments that cripple necessary infrastructure and increase the likelihood of payment,” said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos.
“The recent increase in remote working provides extra motivation to disable cloud infrastructure that is being relied on more than ever, so it’s worrisome that many organisations still don’t understand their responsibility in securing cloud data and workloads,” said Wisniewski. “Cloud security is a shared responsibility, and organisations need to carefully manage and monitor cloud environments in order to stay one step ahead of determined attackers.”
Data gathered by Sophos shows that accidental exposure continues to plague organisations, with misconfigurations exploited in 66% of reported attacks. Misconfigurations drive the majority of incidents and are all too common given cloud management complexities.
Additionally, 37% of Singapore organisations report that cybercriminals gained access through stolen cloud provider account credentials. Despite this, less than a quarter of organisations say managing access to cloud accounts is a top area of concern.
All Singapore respondents surveyed admit to concern about their current level of cloud security, an encouraging sign that it’s top of mind and important. Appropriately, identifying and responding to security incidents top the list of security concerns for nearly more than half (51%) of respondents in Singapore; “data leaks” is a close second (50%).
