In April 2020, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella summed up the rapid adoption of remote work caused by COVID-19 saying, “We have seen two years of digital transformation in two months.” While economic uncertainty has resulted in some organizations pumping the brakes on their digital acceleration, many of your customers are looking at hybrid IT networks to help deliver better access to applications and data.  

Fortinet recently partnered with Cybersecurity Insiders to survey more than 800 cybersecurity professionals from around the world and across industries. The 2022 Cloud Security Report reveals how security executives and practitioners are using the cloud, how their organizations are responding to security threats in the cloud, and the challenges they are facing. Following are highlights from this year’s report that you can weave into conversations with your customers.

Digital Acceleration Spurs Cloud Adoption
To compete in this digital-first economy, organizations are rapidly shifting their workloads to the cloud, with the goal of reducing costs, increasing responsiveness and achieving faster time to market. Thirty-nine percent of respondents are selecting either a hybrid cloud (up from 36 percent last year) or a multi-cloud deployment approach (33 percent) to integrate multiple services, provide scalability or ensure business continuity.

Cloud Security Concerns Remain Top-of-Mind
While cloud adoption has accelerated over the past few years, security concerns are top-of-mind for companies’ IT and security teams. Ransomware attacks are more sophisticated and costly, and cybercriminals are better educated as to how to infiltrate companies in data-rich fields such as the pharmaceutical industry. It’s no surprise that 95 percent of organizations are moderately to extremely concerned about cloud security.

While most organizations are choosing a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy, they are also struggling with complexity and security challenges. According to the report, 61 percent of respondents said that a lack of security skills is the top challenge—up from 57 percent last year, followed by data protection, understanding how different solutions fit together and loss of visibility and control.

Simplifying Complexity for Successful Cloud Adoption
To reduce complexity and increase their cloud security postures, organizations are taking advantage of a cybersecurity mesh platform. With threat intelligence directly shared across diverse attack vectors, visibility, management and automation are simpler, meaning that threats are identified and mitigated faster. This approach helps reduce complexity and increases overall security effectiveness. More organizations are eyeing cybersecurity mesh platforms, with 78 percent of respondents saying that it is very or extremely helpful to have a single cloud security platform to protect their data across their cloud environments.

Fortinet helps deliver cloud-native security solutions that empower a secure digital acceleration with the cloud. Available on all major cloud platforms and for all cloud environments, the Fortinet Security Fabric extends world-class security across on-premises, hybrid and cloud platforms.