Cloud Threat Report reveals it takes six days on average to resolve a cloud security alert

 

What happened: The Cloud Threat Report from Palo Alto Networks has found that cloud security teams are failing to resolve cloud security alerts in a timely manner, thus putting their organizations at an increased cyber risk. The researchers also identified a set of "risky behaviors" that can trigger a data breach, which includes unrestricted firewall policies, exposed databases, and unenforced multifactor authentication (MFA). Furthermore, the report reveals that attacks on software supply chains are on the rise and that such attacks could potentially lead to catastrophic outcomes.  Why it matters: The rate of cloud migration continues to increase, expanding the attack surface with vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that threat actors can easily exploit. As cloud technology becomes more ubiquitous and complex, so do the attacks. Data breaches can damage a company's reputation and cause serious issues for customers whose data has been exposed and/or stolen.  What the numbers say: According to the Palo Alto Networks Report, cloud security teams take six days on average to resolve a security alert, with 60% of organizations surveyed taking longer than four days to resolve such issues. Data from Shred-it reveals that based on the responses of 125 C-level executives, 31% of respondents in the U.S. and 38% of respondents in Canada said that it takes "about a month" to resolve issues created by data breaches. Data breaches can also be costly; an IMB-sponsored survey of 550 global organizations by the Ponemon Institute found that the average cost of a data breach in 2022 was $4.35M.         Brands that should care: Any company or organization using cloud computing should ensure their cloud security teams address security alerts before it's too late. These organizations can gain valuable insight from Palo Alto Networks' Cloud Threat Report, as it provides an in-depth analysis of how security issues arise in the first place and ways to prevent them from happening and deal with them effectively.