01 Jun 2023 Thales Data Threat Report Findings
According to the recently released 2023 Thales Data Threat Report, nearly half (47%) of IT professionals surveyed believe that security threats are increasing in volume or severity with 48% reporting an increase in ransomware attacks. More than a third (37%) have experienced a data breach in the past 12 months, including 22% reporting that their organisation had been a victim of a ransomware attack. Despite this rising incidence of attacks, more than half of those enterprises surveyed (51%) stated that they do not have a formal ransomware plan.
The report was compiled using research based on a global survey of nearly 3,000 respondents across 18 countries, fielded in November and December last year via web survey. This included targeted populations for each country, aimed at professionals in security and IT management, including 102 respondents in the UAE.
Respondents identified their cloud assets as the biggest targets for cyber-attacks. Over a quarter (28%) said SaaS apps and cloud-based storage were the biggest targets, followed by cloud-hosted applications (26%) and cloud infrastructure management (25%). The increase in cloud exploitation and attacks is directly due to the increase in workloads moving to the cloud as 75% of respondents said 40% of data stored in the cloud is now classified as sensitive compared to 49% of respondents in 2022.
Emmanuel De Roquefeuil, Vice-President for Thales Middle East said: “The security attacks and breaches are growing in line with the growing use of cloud infrastructure. Digital transformation continues to accelerate and include a wider range of industries, using a greater diversity of cloud services, technology and personnel. Multi-cloud use is the rule now, not the exception. Even organizations that employ more conservative cloud deployment strategies such as rehosting or ‘lift and shift’, now report strong multicloud adoption, with 79% of enterprises having production workloads in more than one public cloud.”
“At Thales we believe that organizations can manage their digital transformations securely by protecting more apps and more users through better multi-factor authentication (MFA) coverage. In today’s threat environment all users and applications are targets.”
Thales’s Data Threat Report shows the need for increased cloud security amidst the increasingly turbulent digital landscape. Get involved with Thales and protecting your cloud.