Report says most companies lack cloud governance policies

With so many companies using public and hybrid cloud services, policy compliance and enforcement becomes increasingly important. However, according to a recent study, most IT organizations running cloud services lack compliance policies.

According to the study, 75 percent of IT organizations either run or plan on running cloud applications. However, only 34 percent of respondents have governance policies for cloud-based information. Additionally, 57 percent of respondents said they believe their organizations need to to more to improve their policies.

The company’s chief strategy officer said information management is vital for IT organizations moving to the cloud. "Everyone is very, very certain that clouds are the wave of the future... but you need to own the information, ensure that it is protected, secure and available to you alone, assuming it is confidential," he said to Network Computing.

There are several steps that can be taken to keep information safe on the cloud. Cloud experts recommend users clean and anonymize their data, use cloud-independent encryption and pay providers extra for more compliance control.