Aussie companies over-reliant on third-party cloud security

Australian organisations are overly reliant on third parties for cloud security and failing to prioritise securing the software supply chain, research from SUSE suggests.

A survey of IT decision-makers found that only 26% of Australian IT decision-makers are prioritising independent in-house reviews on vendor software. Instead, many Australian organisations are depending on vendor-backed software (32%), certifying processes and tools used to build software (29%), or using third-party curated libraries and container images (20%) to mitigate cloud risks, the survey found.

On the positive side, only 39% of Australian companies reported facing cloud-related incidents in the past 12 months, with only 37% reporting edge-related incidents. Companies from other countries are reporting much higher rates of such incidents, as high as 89% and 91% respectively in India.

By contrast, ransomware was identified as the top threat by 44% of Australian IT teams, with other concerns including visibility into sensitive data in the cloud (22%), data theft (22%) and attacks on running services using unknown vulnerabilities (21%).

Meanwhile over half (52%) of Australian respondents express concerns about the risks associated with GenAI in cloud environments, and while 78% show interest in migrating more workloads into the cloud, this is contingent on the ability to secure cloud environments.

SUSE Asia-Pacific CTO Vishal Ghariwala said the report demonstrates that the growing complexity of the digital landscape is creating new security challenges for organisations across the Asia–Pacific region.

“This underscores the need for continuous investment and tailored security strategies in the region,” he said. “We also saw how regulatory and technological differences are influencing how security risks are perceived and prioritised. By leveraging open source, organisations can be on the front foot to protect and advance their cloud security practices across the Asia–Pacific region.”

Image credit: iStock.com/YUTTHANA JAIDEE