2022 Thales Cloud Security Report

The 2022 Thales Cloud Security Study polled nearly 2,800 IT professionals in 17 countries in five regions (USA, Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America). The Asia Pacific (APAC) section of the report focuses on data from respondents in seven key markets in the APAC region—Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea— constituting 876 respondents from midsize to large enterprises. The study examines major cloud and cloud security trends that are reflected in the survey data across the region.

In this report, we consider trends seen in APAC, how they compare globally and with other regions – as well as with prior research – and how all these factors are manifested in APAC. Unless noted otherwise, ‘respondents’ in this report refers to APAC-based respondents.

Key Findings

• Most APAC organisations have now adopted a multicloud approach, with 60% of respondents indicating more than one cloud provider. Customers are using a wide range and variety of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS cloud solutions in their environments.
• Increasing cloud complexity is a major concern, echoed globally by virtually all respondents.
  • Significant workloads and data remain outside of cloud environments in APAC, four percentage points lower than the global number.
• Cloud security policies and standards are key concerns, with strong trends toward centralised cloud policy control and enforcement evident.
• Failed compliance audits are on an upward trajectory, with a growing number of audit failures over 2021.
• Data breach rates were significantly lower than global averages, although improvements in cloud data breaches and failed audits were also lower.
• Encryption technologies are important, particularly so from a regulatory perspective, although adoption of these technologies remains relatively low, both regionally and globally.
  • Key management solution sprawl is a key issue for organisations worldwide, creating additional complexity and increasing risk.
• APAC organisations are embracing zero trust, particularly in cloud environments, although increases in adoption are modest.