More than eight in 10 C-level executives expect the changes made in people, processes and applications as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic to become permanent.

According to the Radware report, the pandemic accelerated the migration of business infrastructure and applications into the cloud.

“The transition to remote work and new online contactless business models is not temporary and is affecting the future strategy on how organisations invest in cyber security,. “Normally, businesses would make this shift over an extended period of time. However, the pandemic forced a massive shift to remote work which is now creating new security challenges,” said Anna Convery-Pelletier, Chief Marketing Officer of Radware.

Radware worked with Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) to conduct the global online survey of 260 executives in July 2020 with nearly equal distribution of the respondents from the Americas, EMEA and APAC. The respondents represent a wide range of industries with a minimum revenue of US$250 million and from 1000 to 9,999 employees.

Accelerated adoption

About three quarter of respondents adopted cloud services faster than they had planned, while 56 precent said that the contactless economy, e-commerce, on-demand content, videoconferencing, and such had a positive impact on their business.

The “C-Suite Perspectives: Accelerated Cloud Migration but Lagging Security” report revealed that pandemic-driven changes affected various aspects of business.

The results showed a sudden and massive shift to remote work accelerated cloud migration, but the accelerated lift and shift along with heavy reliance on service providers for security leaves blind spots.

Some 44 percent of executives reported a negative impact on budgets, 43 percent a workforce reduction, while 37 percent reduced real estate footprints.

Security gaps

The quick migration helped to maintain business operations but potentially exacerbated cyber security gaps, due to an increased attack surface.

Two in five experienced an increase in cyber attacks amid the pandemic with 32 percent relying on their cloud provider’s security services to provide security management for their public cloud assets.

More than 80 percent believe that more than a quarter of their staff would work remotely in the future.