Brenda Marie Rivers
A study from Forcepoint and the Ponemon Institute found that 55 percent of 618 federal senior leaders and information technology professionals reported they have “strongly embraced the cloud.”
Participants in the survey included agency managers, executives, IT staff, technicians and consultants who are knowledgeable about government cloud systems and security platforms, Forcepoint said Tuesday.
Eighty-two percent of respondents said they believe Software as a Service is key to address goals of their agencies and 42 percent noted their organizations use more than 250 SaaS applications across their IT environments.
Eric Trexler, vice president of global government and critical infrastructure at Forcepoint, said the public sector needs to adopt “frictionless” security products that match the speed of cloud computing and develop a threat strategy to handle large amounts of data that may be migrated to non-Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program compliant environments.
“Agencies understand that cloud applications are the path forward for increased efficiency, improved citizen experience, and better collaboration with mission partners, but this digital transformation requires that data flows both freely and securely regardless of where it resides,†Trexler added.
Forcepoint said 67 percent of survey participants cite security as the primary factor that inhibits cloud adoption, while 65 percent indicate that meeting security requirements is agencies’ biggest worry about cloud migration.
