Cloud security strategies lag behind increasing workload complexity

A recent SANS Cloud Security Survey reveals that while 93% of organizations run production workloads in the cloud, only 40% of firms consider their security strategies to be advanced or optimized. Nearly half of the surveyed IT and security professionals describe their security strategies as only partially implemented.

Key challenges identified include significant delays in remediation, with 49% of organizations taking more than 24 hours to address known critical security gaps. Experts point to misconfiguration as a persistent weakness, often caused by the difficulty of managing security across multiple consoles without clear ownership.

Complexity is further driven by multi-cloud and hybrid environments, where 87% of companies now operate. This fragmentation creates visibility gaps and hidden paths for lateral movement. Additionally, a lack of data governance remains a major issue, with research indicating that 42% of organizations have no formal data governance structure in place. The integration of AI is expected to increase these complexities, making audit trails and data quality even more critical.