Multi-cloud Data Security Trends Noted in Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Security, 2020

Fortanix® Inc., the Runtime Encryption® company, today announced that the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Security, 2020 has identified emerging data security trends that aim to help businesses protect sensitive information as they migrate sensitive data and applications to the public cloud. The comprehensive report defines, tracks adoption, and discusses the business impact of critical data security categories, including multicloud key management as a service (KMaaS), confidential computing, and hardware-based security gaining adoption in cloud environments.

According to Gartner, “The need for multicloud KMaaS is increasing as organizations grow their deployments of hybrid and multi-cloud services and the need for consistent KM across these environments increases. Native cloud service platform KM offerings do not directly support hybrid or multi-cloud KM. Given the growth of cloud adoption, coupled with concerns over data residency, data protection and privacy, it is expected that multicloud KMaaS adoption will continue to grow.”¹

Eighty-one percent of organizations are using more than one public cloud provider² and 71 percent of data in public cloud is sensitive. Privacy regulations are proliferating and requiring more encryption and tokenization of personally identifiable information (PII). But categories of technology are emerging that help protect sensitive data in the cloud, meet privacy regulations, and enable secure migration to the cloud for private data, accelerating digital transformation.

According to Gartner, “Confidential computing potentially removes the remaining barrier to cloud adoption for highly regulated businesses or any organization concerned about unauthorized third-party access to data in use in the public cloud. It’s likely that auditors and regulators will demand, for certain data types, increased protection including high barriers to provider and government access. Confidential computing can provide such protection now.” ¹

Today, data is often encrypted at rest in storage and in transit across the network, but not while in use by applications. Cybercriminals, insiders, and nation-states who gain access to the compute infrastructure can access sensitive data through the memory of servers in cloud environments. Confidential computing provides the strongest protection of data and code by running applications in secure enclaves that are isolated and encrypted using hardware-based security.

According to Gartner, “If an operating system is compromised, its security controls can be disabled and sensitive data in memory stolen; Hardware-based security can prevent this. Hardware-based security uses chip-level techniques for the protection of critical security controls and processes in host systems independent of OS integrity. Typical control isolation includes encryption key handling, secrets protection, secure I/O, process monitoring and unencrypted memory handling.” ¹

Fortanix delivers Multicloud KMaaS, confidential computing, and hardware-based data security solutions that help businesses migrate their sensitive data to the public cloud, enabling digital transformation, protecting customer privacy, and preventing data breaches.

“Fortanix is accelerating the adoption of these key data security technologies by simplifying cloud integration and providing a platform to address a broad set of cloud data security challenges,” said David Greene, Fortanix CRO. “At the current rate of data growth, it is challenging to secure all sensitive cloud data without a multicloud data security strategy and security controls that span multiple clouds.”

For more information, see a copy of the Hype Cycle for Cloud Security, 2020 at
https://resources.fortanix.com/gartner-hype-cycle-for-cloud-data-security-2020

More Resources

• Multicloud Data Security: Cloud Security Landscape Whitepaper
• Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager
• Confidential Computing: Hardware-based Trusted Execution for Applications and Data Whitepaper

¹ Gartner, Inc. “Hype Cycle for Cloud Security, 2020” by Steve Riley, et al. July 17, 2020.

² Gartner, Inc. “IT Leaders’ Strategy Deck: Multicloud and Hybrid Cloud”, Infrastructure and Operations Research Team, Jan. 15, 2020.
* According to Gartner, most enterprises already use more than one cloud provider. This is based on average, respondents report working with 2-3 public cloud providers and two types of cloud, and the total study n = 1,200 organizations.

About Fortanix

Fortanix unlocks the power of organizations’ most valuable data by securing it throughout its lifecycle, on premises and in the cloud. Fortanix provides unique deterministic security by encrypting applications and data everywhere – at rest, in motion, and in use with its Runtime Encryption® technology built upon Intel® SGX. Fortanix secures F100 customers worldwide and powers IBM Data Shield and Equinix SmartKey™ HSM-as-a-service. Fortanix is venture backed and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information, see https://fortanix.com/