DLP, IaaS container encryption gain traction in the enterprise

Rapid growth in cloud adoption is driving increased interest in securing data, applications and workloads that now exist in a cloud computing environment, Gartner says in its latest Hype Cycle for Cloud Security.

Gartner publishes the Hype Cycle to help security professionals understand which technologies are ready for mainstream use, and which are still years away from productive deployments for most organisations.

At the peak

The peak of inflated expectations is a phase of over enthusiasm and unrealistic projections, where the hype is not matched by successful deployments in mainstream use. This year the technologies at the peak include data loss protection for mobile devices, key management as-a-service and software-defined perimeter. Gartner expects all of these technologies will take at least five years to reach productive mainstream adoption.

In the trough

When a technology does not live up to the hype of the peak of inflated expectations, it becomes unfashionable and moves along the cycle to the trough of disillusionment. There are two technologies in this section that Gartner expects to achieve mainstream adoption in the next two years:

Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) is in the early stages of maturity, with around 20-50% market penetration. Early adopters are typically smaller organisations with fewer than 100 employees, which lacked a recovery data centre, experienced IT staff and specialised skills needed to manage a DR program on their own.

Private cloud computing is used when organisations want to the benefits of public cloud — such as IT agility to drive business value and growth — but aren’t able to find cloud services that meet their needs in terms of regulatory requirements, functionality or intellectual property protection. The use of third-party specialists for building private clouds is growing rapidly because the cost and complexity of building a true private cloud can be high.

On the slope

The slope of enlightenment is where experimentation and hard work with new technologies are beginning to pay off in an increasingly diverse range of organisations. There are currently two technologies on the slope that Gartner expects to fully mature within the next two years:

Data loss protection (DLP) is perceived as an effective way to prevent accidental disclosure of regulated information and intellectual property. In practice, it has proved more useful in helping identify undocumented or broken business processes that lead to accidental data disclosures, and providing education on policies and procedures. Organisations with realistic expectations find this technology significantly reduces unintentional leakage of sensitive data. It is relatively easy, however, for a determined insider or motivated outsider to circumvent.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) container encryption is a way for organisations to protect their data held with cloud providers. It’s a similar approach to encrypting a hard drive on a laptop, but it is applied to the data from an entire process or application held in the cloud. This is likely to become an expected feature offered by a cloud provider and indeed Amazon already provides its own free offering, while Microsoft supports free BitLocker and DMcrypt tools for Linux.

Reached the plateau

Four technologies have reached the plateau of productivity, meaning the real-world benefits of the technology have been demonstrated and accepted. Tokenisation, high-assurance hypervisors and application security as a service have all moved up to the plateau, joining identity-proofing services which was the only entrant remaining from last year’s plateau.