According to a new cloud survey from cybersecurity firm Sophos, more than three quarters (82%) of organizations in the Philippines experienced a public cloud security incident in the last year – including ransomware and other malware (77%), exposed data (40%), compromised accounts (40%), and cryptojacking (16%).
Globally, organizations running multi-cloud environments are greater than 50% more likely to suffer a cloud security incident than those running a single cloud, the survey revealed.
“Ransomware, not surprisingly, is one of the most widely reported cybercrimes in the public cloud. The most successful ransomware attacks include data in the public cloud, according to the State of Ransomware 2020 report, and attackers are shifting their methods to target cloud environments that cripple necessary infrastructure and increase the likelihood of payment,” said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos.
“The recent increase in remote working provides extra motivation to disable cloud infrastructure that is being relied on more than ever, so it’s worrisome that many organizations still don’t understand their responsibility in securing cloud data and workloads. Cloud security is a shared responsibility, and organizations need to carefully manage and monitor cloud environments in order to stay one step ahead of determined attackers.”
Accidental exposure continues to plague organizations, with misconfigurations exploited in 71% of reported attacks in the Philippines. In the report, misconfigurations drive the majority of incidents and are all too common given cloud management complexities.
Additionally, 27% of Philippine organizations reported that cybercriminals gained access through stolen cloud provider account credentials. Despite this, less than half (32%) of organizations said managing access to cloud accounts is a top area of concern.
All Philippine respondents (100%) admitted to concern about their current level of cloud security, while more than half (58%) of the respondents understood that security of an organization is a shared responsibility between organizations, partners, and vendors.
Appropriately, identifying and responding to security incidents topped the list of security concerns for 39% of respondents; staying compliant with relevant regulations, as well as a lack of visibility into infrastructure both come a close equal second (34%).
