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Dome9 Security, a leading provider of security management for public and private clouds, and the Ponemon Institute announced the results of its cloud security study that assessed the obstacles faced by IT departments with firewall and port security in cloud environments.
Ponemon found the majority of organizations are vulnerable to theft or hacking as a result of their inadequately secured systems. Professional liability insurance can cover fiscal losses as a result from data theft.
The study surveyed 682 respondents who had an average of 10 years of IT or IT security experience, with 40 percent of them working for organization with at least 5,000 employees. According to Ponemon, 67 percent of IT respondents felt their organization's system was vulnerable and 54 percent of respondents said their organization was unaware of the risks that come along with open cloud systems.
Larry Ponemon, founder and chairman of the Ponemon Institute, said in a statement that his organization feels the study serves as the first successful research to examine the risks of unsecured ports and firewalls through cloud systems.
"More than half of the respondents said it is very likely or likely that administrative cloud server ports left open for access expose the organization to increased hacker attacks and security exploits," Ponemon said. "Nineteen percent say these exploits have already happened."