A new study from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), commissioned by cybersecurity pioneer AlgoSec, has revealed that most organizations are struggling to secure applications across fragmented, hybrid cloud environments.
As more applications are spread between on-premises data centers and multiple cloud providers, traditional approaches to network security are proving ineffective.
The report, “The Case for Convergence in Hybrid Multi-cloud, Application-centric Networks,” shows that 89% of organizations are using different tools and policies to secure various parts of their infrastructure, making it harder to maintain consistency and control.
Key findings
Key findings from the research include:
- Hybrid is the new normal: 85% of organizations use two or more cloud service providers, but 43% of applications are still on-premises. Most expect that mix to stay for the foreseeable future.
- Security tools are siloed: Nearly 80% use firewalls from cloud providers, while others rely on third-party tools or micro segmentation solutions, leading to inconsistent policies and limited visibility.
- Attacks are happening: 43% of organizations experienced a public cloud attack in the past two years. Common issues include malware moving across systems (44%), misconfigurations (32%), and open ports (26%).
- Collaboration is still lacking: Even as some teams merge responsibilities for on-prem and cloud security, 55% say they still need to improve coordination between security, cloud, networking, and application teams.
- Real business impact: Beyond risk reduction, companies see strong operational gains. The top expected benefits of better network security include greater efficiency (63%), lower costs (48%), and faster cloud migrations (46%).
