Security News > 2023 > November > The perils of over-reliance on single cloud providers

The risk associated with dependence on a particular cloud provider for multiple business capabilities is in the top five emerging risks for organizations for the second consecutive quarter, according to a survey by Gartner.

In September 2023, Gartner surveyed 294 risk executives about their views on emerging risk or over-the-horizon risks.

"The risk associated with cloud concentration is fast losing its 'emerging' status as it is becoming a widely recognized risk for most enterprises," said Ran Xu, director, research in the Gartner Legal Risk & Compliance Practice.

Cloud concentration risk has come about because many organizations have opted to focus their IT efforts on a handful of strategic providers in order to reduce IT complexity, and therefore also risk, cost and skill requirements.

"Where organizations have chosen to go the route of hosting their IT services in public clouds, there aren't many obvious ways to avoid concentration risk while keeping the benefits of cloud services," said Xu. "Moreover, regulations at the country and subnational level diverge on concentration risk, anti-competition, data sovereignty and privacy rules pertaining to cloud services - further complicating the picture."

"Currently, if the benefits of public cloud use are considered strategically important to a business, there are not many obvious solutions to remove the risk altogether," said Xu. "That's why it is especially important that businesses have a well-considered continuity plan to put into action should they face any major cloud service issues."

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https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/11/06/cloud-concentration-risk/