The findings of a survey and report conducted by the Ponemon Institute for Security of Cloud Computing Providers indicate:

• The majority of cloud computing providers surveyed do not believe their organization views the security of their cloud services as a competitive advantage. Furthermore, they do not consider cloud computing security as one of their most important responsibilities and do not believe their products or services substantially protect and secure the confidential or sensitive information of their customers.
• The majority of cloud providers believe it is their customer’s responsibility to secure the cloud and not their responsibility. They also say their systems and applications are not always evaluated for security threats prior to deployment to customers.
• Buyer beware – on average providers of cloud computing technologies allocate 10 percent or less of their operational resources to security and most do not have confidence that customers’ security requirements are being met.
• Cloud providers in the study say the primary reasons why customers purchase cloud resources are lower cost and faster deployment of applications. In contrast, improved security or compliance with regulations is viewed as an unlikely reason for choosing cloud services.
• The majority of cloud providers in the study admit they do not have dedicated security personnel to oversee the security of cloud applications, infrastructure or platforms.
• Providers of private cloud resources appear to attach more importance and have a higher level of confidence in their organization’s ability to meet security objectives than providers of public and hybrid cloud solutions.
• While security as a “true” service from the cloud is rarely offered to customers today, about one-third of the cloud providers in the study are considering such solutions as a new source of revenue sometime in the next two years.

An expanded view of these findings in the report paper.

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