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The State of Cloud Security 2020 Report: Understanding Misconfiguration Risk

The State of Cloud Security 2020 Report: Understanding Misconfiguration Risk

Blog Article Published: 05/05/2020

By Drew Wright, Fugue Inc

Cloud misconfiguration remains the top cause of data breaches in the cloud, and the COVID-19 crisis is making the problem worse. These are among the findings of Fugue’s new State of Cloud Security 2020 survey.

Nearly everyone is now working from home, and 84% are concerned that the swift transition to 100% remote has created new security vulnerabilities. Read the article about our findings in Security Magazine.

“What our survey reveals is that cloud misconfiguration not only remains the number one cause of data breaches in the cloud, the rapid global shift to 100% distributed teams is creating new risks for organizations and opportunities for malicious actors.”

  • Phillip Merrick, CEO of Fugue.

While the survey shines a light on how COVID-19 is impacting cloud security, its primary purpose is to dig deep into the number one cause of cloud breaches: misconfiguration. There’s a lot of concern among cloud professionals about it. 84% are concerned they've been hacked and don't know it, while 28% have already been hacked and know it.

Access the full report for free here.

What’s in the report

The objective of this survey was to understand the scale, impact, and causes of cloud misconfiguration, as well as the challenges IT and cloud engineering teams experience in managing it.

Rather than compile macro-economic numbers about the global impact of cloud-related data breaches, we chose to survey cloud professionals (e.g., DevOps engineers; cloud architects; IT operations) to dig into the problem from a team and organization perspective.

What we learned is nearly every IT professional operating in the cloud is worried about it, and the problem isn’t going away anytime soon. 92% are worried they're vulnerable to a cloud breach and 76% say their misconfiguration risk will stay the same or increase.

But why is cloud misconfiguration such a universal problem, and why is it so pervasive?

The report digs into:

  • The causes of cloud misconfiguration
  • The rate of cloud misconfiguration
  • Incidents resulting from cloud misconfiguration
  • Methods teams are using to prevent and eliminate cloud misconfiguration
  • Challenges teams are experiencing in managing cloud misconfiguration
  • How teams rate their effectiveness in managing cloud misconfiguration
  • How much time teams are investing to eliminate cloud misconfiguration
  • What professionals need to better manage cloud misconfiguration

Get the report today. It’s free. Download here.

“I’m seeing a lot of cloud configuration errors in the real world—and it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

  • David Linthicum, InfoWorld

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