New research has revealed that 72 per cent of business executives think security concerns have restricted their organisation’s adoption of public cloud.

Barracuda Networks commissioned Vanson Bourne to survey 750 executives and team managers with responsibility for or knowledge of their organisation’s cloud infrastructure - just less than half of which were from EMEA - finding that concerns specifically refer to the security, or lack there-of, of public cloud infrastructure, applications deployed in public cloud and the potential impact of a cyber attack.

The cloud-enabled security provider’s report also predicted that 76 per cent of organisations’ IT infrastructure will be running in the public cloud within the next five years, compared to just 45 per cent today – a projected increase of 56 per cent by 2025 at least.

Additionally, three quarters of respondents have already been targeted by a cyber attack – on average, UK businesses are aware of at least four attacks targeted against them.

Whilst only 23 per cent of survey respondents have deployed secure software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) to protect their businesses, a further 51 per cent said they are in the process of deploying it, or expect to deploy within the next 12 months. However, only 38 per cent of respondents from the UK expect to deploy it in the next year.

Chris Hill, regional vice president for public cloud at Barracuda Networks, commented: “Considering the abundance of sophisticated cyber attacks that face organisations every day, it is no surprise to see that such a large percentage of business decision makers are still cautious when committing to public cloud IT infrastructure.

“However, organisations can and should take comfort in knowing that if their data and applications are properly protected using proven firewall defence services, and users are gaining access with the assistance of SD-WAN technology, there is no reason that public cloud should be deemed any less secure than traditional data storage or software infrastructure.”

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