36% of Government Departments Without Restriction on Staff Use of Public Cloud Storage

Despite a high profile security breach at Dropbox, Inc. last summer, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Acronis International GmbH has revealed that 29% of central Government departments and 7% of local government authorities still do not have strategies in place to restrict the use of public cloud storage services.

The study also reveals that over half (59%) of local authorities and 29% of central Government departments have restricted access that can be overridden on a case-by-case basis.
 
It also appears that there is confusion as to whether access to these types of services is allowed, with some local authorities citing that the use of these types of public cloud services is forbidden under the Government Code of Connection.
 
The FOIA request looked into attitudes towards public cloud storage services across 48 local and central Government organisations, with 41 responding to the request. It found that 33% of local authorities and 43% of central Government departments block access to these services completely, to minimise the risk of a data breach.

Alan Laing, VP EMEA, Acronis, comments: "Public storage, collaboration and file sharing is very popular amongst workers looking to access data from anywhere. However, in the last year, the realities of the technology have begun to set in as confidential data has been hacked and stolen from the most popular of these public storage services. The need to ensure highly sensitive data stays secure on public sector networks is critical departments and authorities across the country need to be developing and communicating policies that ensure the protection of this data and remove confusion about their authorised use."