Fall 2015 Netskope Cloud Report: Healthcare and Life Sciences Have the Most Violations

By Krishna Narayanaswamy, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Netskope

Today we released our Cloud Report for Fall 2015 – global as well as and Europe, Middle East and Africa versions. Each quarter we report on aggregated, anonymized findings such as top used apps, top activities, and top policy violations from across our customers using the Netskope Active Platform.

This season we focus primarily on app usage and data policy violations by industry grouping as well as activities in cloud apps. Plus, we distill that information down into a few “quick wins” for IT. Here’s an overview:

Industry App Usage

For the first time, this report breaks down trends by industry group, focusing on five key groupings with similar usage characteristics. They are:

• Healthcare and life sciences;
• Financial services, banking, and insurance;
• Retail, restaurants, and hospitality;
• Manufacturing; and
• Technology and IT services

The average number of cloud apps per enterprise climbed from 715 in our last report to 755, with 91.2 lacking in the areas of security, audit and certification, service-level agreement, and other key attributes that we adapted from the Cloud Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix. Technology and IT services saw the highest number of cloud apps, with an average of 1,157 apps per enterprise, with healthcare and life sciences a close second, with 1,017.

Industry Data Policy Violations

A key area of focus for us this season is Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in the cloud. Healthcare and life sciences enterprises had the highest number of DLP policy violations in content at rest in sanctioned apps, with 21.1 percent of files scanned matching at least one DLP profile, such as personally-identifiable information (PII), payment card industry information (PCI), protected health information (PHI), source code, profanity, and “confidential” or “top secret” information. The second highest was Technology and IT services, with 14.2 percent. Overall, healthcare and life sciences enterprises accounted for the vast majority of total DLP policy violations (for both content at rest and en route to and from cloud apps), at 76.2 percent of the total. Not surprisingly, when we drill deeper into violation type, PHI makes up the bulk of such violations in cloud apps, at 68.5 percent. A full run-down on data violations by industry is in the report.

Activities In The Cloud

The top five cloud app activities in this season’s report include “send,” “post,” “login,” “download,” and “view.” Activities associated with data leakage or exposure, such as “share” and “download,” are alive and well in key app categories such as Cloud Storage, HR, and Business Intelligence. In Cloud Storage, for every “login,” there are four “shares.” Within HR, “download” is the fourth most common activity. And within Business Intelligence, “share” – an activity many don’t expect even to be available in this category – is the top activity.

Three Quick Wins For Enterprise It

Based on this report’s findings, here are some quick wins for enterprise IT to enable cloud apps while minimizing risk:

1. Discover and secure sensitive content both at rest in and en route to your cloud apps. Focus on most common DLP violations that carry penalties and can result in negative press, including PHI, PII, and PCI.
2. In defining cloud app policies, consider not just popular Cloud Storage, Social, and Webmail apps, but also focus on business-critical apps like HR, Finance/Accounting, and Business Intelligence.
3. Go beyond coarse-grained “allow” or “block” decisions on cloud apps, and enforce contextual policies on risky activities such as “download” (e.g., to mobile), “share” (e.g., outside of the company), or “delete” (e.g., if you’re not in the enterprise directory group “HR Directors”).

What are your quick wins for dealing with cloud app risk? We want to hear them!