Member Article

Cloud adoption has saved more than half of UK businesses from Covid-19 collapse

51 per cent of UK business leaders say their shift to a cloud computing-based business model has saved their company from collapse during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to research from Centrify, a leading provider of identity-centric privileged access management solutions. Given this success, 60 per cent of respondents are planning to substantially increase their use of cloud-based IT throughout and following the pandemic.

The research, which surveyed 200 senior business decision makers in large- and medium-sized companies in the UK in September, also found that Covid-19 has exposed serious weaknesses in businesses’ IT security. 39 per cent of decision-makers agree that the pandemic has exposed huge gaps in their cybersecurity armour. Conversely, this data point suggests that a majority of companies (61 per cent) were ready for the huge security challenge posed by Covid-19 and the shift to remote working.

However, 60 per cent of business leaders agreed that they are more aware of the risks facing their organisation after the recent surge in phishing attacks aimed at quarantined remote workers.

Worryingly, 56 per cent of those surveyed said that remote working has made it harder to identify potential hackers impersonating staff, and, as a result, more than half (51 per cent) say remote working has led to an increase in insider threats. This highlights a need for modern cybersecurity solutions that can limit access and privilege by segregating duties, implementing access request and approval workflows, and leveraging behaviour analytics based on machine learning technology.

Andy Heather, VP, Centrify commented: “Facing the security threats posed by Covid-19 continues to be no easy task, but fortunately business leaders have been rewarded for their trust in public cloud adoption.

“Addressing this concern starts with adopting a cloud-ready privileged access management security solution to enforce least privilege, only granting administrative users just enough access to resources, just in time to do the job required. A modern approach to privileged access control enables businesses to continue remote operations across scalable multi-cloud environments whilst remaining confident that internal threats are flagged, blocked and neutralised.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nick Till .