According to IDC, data worldwide will grow by 61%, to 175 zettabytes by 2025, with 49% of all data stored in public cloud environments. This data is not limited to public information; the 2019 Netwrix Cloud Data Security Report found that the cloud is often used to store many types of data, from less sensitive to extremely critical. However, 35% of organizations that store data in the cloud experienced at least one security incident so far in 2019, which means that many organizations lack sufficient security controls. Let’s take a closer look at the data that’s being stored in the cloud, so we can identify the necessary measures to protect those assests.
According to the Netwrix study, 50% of all organizations store employee data in the cloud. Of 25 industries that were surveyed, the top three types of companies that store their employee data in the cloud are technology companies, financial organizations, and educational institutions. According to the study, 57% of tech companies, 50% of financial organizations, and 38% of educational institutions store their employee data in the cloud. Financial organizations moved this data to the cloud primarily to ensure availability for remote workers, and tech companies and educational institutions did so to increase cost efficiency.