Fortinet Inc.

07/19/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/19/2024 15:46

IDC Snapshot: Cloud Services Adoption Impacting Cybersecurity Strategy for European Leaders

As revealed in this Fortinet-sponsored IDC Info Snapshot, an increasing number of European organizations are using the cloud to transform the way they deliver critical business applications, services, and security.

This represents a major shift in mindset. In the race to accelerate development agility through a move to DevOps, organizations worldwide quickly embraced all the latest cloud technologies and platforms without necessarily considering the security implications.

DevOps allows organizations to rapidly and continuously develop, deploy, and iterate cloud-native applications, thereby fostering digital acceleration and better outcomes for these organizations. However, a misalignment of key performance indicators (KPIs) often creates friction between those responsible for delivering business services and those responsible for securing them. As a result, essential security controls were sometimes bypassed in so-called "shadow IT" projects, increasing exposure to cyberthreats and weakening organizations' overall security postures.

Speed vs. Security

For some years now, cybersecurity has been viewed by many business executives as a brake on speed and agility. Conversely, many security leaders viewed the rapid proliferation of cloud environments as an unwelcome source of additional complexity, expanding the attack surface of the networks they were tasked with securing. This is understandable given that, according to the 2024 Cloud Security Report sponsored by Fortinet, 51% of organizations report that they lack the right skills to deploy and manage a complete solution across all cloud environments, while 55% reported concerns about being able to ensure data protection and privacy across multi-cloud environments.

Recently, however, as both cloud technology and service offerings have matured, a more integrated approach known as DevSecOps has emerged. With DevSecOps, which stands for development, security, and operations, security becomes a shared responsibility throughout the entire IT life cycle. The transition requires a combination of automation, integrated platform design, and a cultural shift from functional silos to cross-functional collaboration.

The Value of DevSecOps

As the mutual benefits of DevSecOps take hold, it seems that business and security leaders are now aligning behind a common set of objectives. As reflected in this IDC Info Snapshot, the adoption of cloud services in pursuit of greater speed, agility, and economies of scale is increasingly seen by European security leaders as an opportunity to transform their cybersecurity strategy and address risk more effectively.

According to IDC, 66% of European leaders now consider security in the public cloud to be at least as effective as on-premises solutions for public cloud resources, accelerating investment in both cloud-hosted and cloud-native security.

Furthermore, organizations adopting an integrated platform approach, such as that provided by the Fortinet Security Fabric, benefit from the increased operational efficiency of bringing all applications and resources, whether cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid mix of the two, under a common, consistent security policy.

Steps for Improving Cloud Security

To provide a more secure foundation for their digital operations and future business growth, successful European organizations were found to be more likely to apply the following key principles:

Dedicating time to DevSecOps: Greater collaboration between development, security, and operations was found to improve innovation, accelerate time to market, and reduce risk by removing the temptation to cut corners through shadow development projects.

Prioritizing people: Leveraging and bringing together internal expertise from across the business to create a cloud center of excellence (CCoE) can improve overall security maturity while nurturing and developing future talent.

Building on platforms: Well-integrated security platforms, such as the Fortinet Security Fabric, offer consistent security, whether cloud-hosted, cloud-native, or on-premises. Platforms designed to be deployed in any environment reduce operational complexity across hybrid networks and provide greater flexibility, visibility, and agility, regardless of where applications reside.

To put these principles into practice, organizations are forging close partnerships with strategic vendors like Fortinet to build out a solid, unified foundation that enables them to realize the cloud's full potential for achieving highly effective, agile, and scalable security.

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