11 October 2016

Average cloud apps per enterprise by app category. Despite growing popularity of productivity and collaboration apps, Netskope said the vast majority are not enterprise-ready.

More than 43 per cent of malware found in enterprises cloud apps have delivered ransomware, and 56 per cent of infected files are shared publicly. That’s according to the recently published 2016 Cloud Report from Netskope.

The cloud security specialist said there are on average 26 pieces of malware found in cloud apps across a given organisation. Of the malware types detected, 43.7 per cent are common ransomware delivery vehicles, including Javascript exploits and droppers, Microsoft Office macros and PDF exploits. 

Netskope said these ransomware attacks are often initially delivered through phishing and email attacks. But within cloud environments, it warned that infected and encrypted files can quickly spread to other users in what is known as the ‘fan-out effect’ which is caused by cloud app sync and share functionality.

The report’s findings are based on aggregated and anonymised data from millions of users in hundreds of accounts in the global Netskope Active Platform.

It also revealed that that, on average, enterprises have 824 cloud apps in use (up from 777 last quarter) but that that 94.7 per cent of those apps are not “enterprise-ready”. According to the Netskope Cloud Confidence Index, they lack key functionalities such as security, audit and certification, SLAs, legal, privacy, financial viability, and vulnerability remediation.