Concerns among global technology leaders about the security of cloud, data center and hybrid work environments have risen significantly over the past year, according to a new article by IEEE.
The professional body surveyed 350 CIOs, CTOs, IT managers and other technology leaders in the US, UK, China, India and Brazil to compile the Awaiting the report, The impact of technology in 2023 and beyond: an IEEE global study.
Respondents came from organizations with more than 1000 employees in multiple industry sectors, including financial services, consumer goods, education, electronics, engineering, energy, government, healthcare, retail, technology and telecommunications.
The number expressing concerns about cloud vulnerabilities has increased significantly compared to a year ago. About 51% highlighted them as a potential threat for 2023, compared to 35% in 2022.
This could theoretically include a variety of potential cyber risks, including misconfigured systems, insecure APIs, insecure development processes, and system vulnerabilities, among others.
Misconfiguration was the number one cause of cloud security incidents in 2021, according to A Check Point Research from the beginning of the year.
As the push for digital transformation continues, more organizations are investing in multiple public clouds, which can lead to additional complexity and increased potential for data exposure. Last year, estimated 92% of organizations had a multi-cloud strategy while 80% said they were planning hybrid cloud deployments.
The second-ranked security concern in the IEEE study was the mobile and hybrid workforce, cited by 46% of respondents, up from 39% a year earlier.
This is also an understandable concern, folks 58% of Americans Work from home at least one day a week. The risk is that organizations fail to update security policies from the pre-COVID era to account for the new reality of a permanently distributed workforce.
The third most common security concern in 2023 was data center vulnerabilities (43%), up from 27% a year ago.
New blog from IEEE highlights homomorphic encryption and blockchain technology as two areas of innovation to watch out for in cybersecurity in 2023.
A third of respondents claimed that securing IoT-based machine-to-machine interactions will be the most important use of blockchain technology in the next year.
