The Netwrix Cloud Data Security Report 2021 found that the most common incidents that financial organisations suffered regarding data in the cloud in 2020 were phishing attacks (26%), targeted attacks on cloud infrastructure (22%) and ransomware (15%). Among organisations that experienced a data breach, Netwrix’s Research Lab found that 20% of respondents had to cover unplanned expenses to fix security gaps, 19% faced compliance fines and 17% experienced customer churn.

The study also reports that 59% of financial organisations surveyed by it consider 'understaffed IT and security teams’ to be the 'major reason’ they ‘struggle’ to secure data in the cloud. Other factors include lack of expertise in cloud security (44%) and employee negligence (37%).

Netwrix’s Cloud Data Security Report 2021’s other headline findings include:

1. 53% of financial organisations store customer data in the cloud, and 35% store financial data there

2. Targeted attacks on cloud infrastructure took the longest to detect and resolve – 41% of financial organisations needed days or weeks to discover the incident, and 38% spent days or weeks on response

3. 70% of respondents audit user activity in the cloud in order to mitigate data security risks

4. 30% of respondents had to change their IT priorities due to the Coronavirus pandemic but stick to their existing budget. 19% reported security budget cuts