61 Cloud Security Statistics You Must Know in 2025

What Is Cloud Security? 

Cloud security refers to the technologies, policies, controls, and services that protect cloud computing environments, data, applications, and infrastructure. It encompasses a broad set of practices to defend against internal and external threats across different types of cloud deployments, including public, private, and hybrid clouds.

Cloud security addresses several key concerns: protecting data privacy, managing access control, ensuring compliance with regulations, and defending against cyber threats such as data breaches, DDoS attacks, and malware. This includes securing both the infrastructure provided by cloud service providers and the workloads and data customers deploy in the cloud.

Key Cloud Security Statistics 

General Cloud Security Statistics

As cloud adoption grows, so does the attack surface. Organizations are migrating core workloads to cloud environments but often without equivalent security maturity. The following statistics provide a snapshot of the global cloud security landscape.

General cloud security statistics:

1. 80% of companies experienced a serious cloud security issue in 2023.
2. Over 60% reported public cloud-related security incidents in 2024.
3. 83% of organizations consider cloud security a major concern.
4. The average cost of a data breach is $4.35 million.
5. 51% of organizations plan to increase cloud security investments.
6. 58% of developers anticipate greater cloud security risks in 2024.
7. 82% of data breaches in 2023 involved cloud-stored data.

Sources: Thales, IBM, PwC

Cloud Misconfiguration Statistics

Cloud misconfiguration is one of the most common—and preventable—causes of security incidents. It often results from incorrect identity and access management (IAM), insecure APIs, or public exposure of storage services. The following statistics illustrate how widespread the problem is.

Cloud misconfiguration statistics:

8. 23% of cloud security incidents stem from misconfigurations.
9. 27% of companies have had security breaches in public cloud infrastructure.
10. 82% of misconfigurations are caused by human error, not software flaws.
11. IAM misconfigurations and insecure API keys are top concerns.
12. 83% of organizations are worried about data sovereignty due to misconfigurations.
13. 89% of businesses impacted by misconfigurations were startups.
14. 55% of companies say data privacy is a challenge related to misconfigurations.
15. 79% of organizations use more than one cloud provider, increasing misconfiguration risks.

Sources: Verizon, Palo Alto Networks, Flexera

Cloud Security Breaches Statistics

Security breaches in the cloud often expose sensitive data and cause prolonged downtime. The impact can be particularly severe for startups and public sector organizations. Below are key figures showing the prevalence and nature of these breaches.

Cloud security breaches statistics:

16. 45% of data breaches occur in the cloud.
17. 83% of organizations experienced a cloud security breach in the past 18 months.
18. 80% faced a cloud breach in the last year alone.
19. 82% of breaches are attributed to lack of visibility in hybrid environments.
20. 25% of organizations fear they have experienced a breach they are unaware of.
21. 58% of developers expected increased breach risks in 2024.
22. 31% of companies spend over $50 million annually to protect cloud infrastructure.
23. The public sector (88%) and startups (89%) were most affected in 2023.

Sources: IBM, Thales, CSA

Multi-Cloud Security Statistics

Multi-cloud adoption introduces complexity in managing different platforms, tools, and compliance requirements. These inconsistencies increase the risk of misconfigurations and reduce control over security policies.

Multi-cloud security statistics:

24. 56% of organizations struggle to secure data across multi-cloud environments.
25. 69% report challenges in maintaining consistent security controls across providers.
26. 45% lack qualified staff to manage multi-cloud security.
27. 88% of government agencies see cloud misconfiguration as a top issue.
28. 70% of CIOs say cloud technologies reduce their overall control.

Sources: Cyble, PR Newswire

Statistics of Cloud Attack Vectors

Cloud environments face targeted attacks such as phishing, ransomware, credential theft, and API exploitation. These statistics highlight the most common attack methods used by threat actors.

Cloud attack vector statistics:

29. 25% of breaches are caused by phishing attacks.
30. 69% of organizations experienced phishing-based identity security incidents in 2024.
31. 80% of breaches involve compromised or misused privileged credentials.
32. 48% of IT professionals reported an increase in ransomware incidents last year.
33. 29% of ransomware infections started via file downloads or email attachments.
34. 94% of businesses reported API-related security issues in 2023.
35. 55% of HTTP malware downloads came from cloud applications.
36. 52% of organizations cite insecure interfaces as a major cloud threat.

Sources: Sentinel One, Identity Defined Security Alliance, Ransomware.org, Forbes

Statistics of Security Challenges in Cloud Operations

Cloud security requires specialized knowledge, automation, and integration across development pipelines. Many organizations struggle with skills gaps, tool integration, and managing compliance across dynamic cloud environments.

Cloud security challenges statistics:

37. 71% report a shortage of skilled cloud security professionals.
38. 91% are concerned about handling zero-day vulnerabilities.
39. 45% say cloud security consumes significant engineering resources.
40. 77% cite poor training and collaboration as a key obstacle.
41. 49% have difficulty integrating cloud services into legacy systems.
42. 54% struggle with consistent compliance across environments.
43. 42% of cloud engineers think they’re responsible for security, but only 19% of security teams agree.

Sources: Spacelift, Snyk

Statistics of Financial Impact of Cloud Security Failures

Security failures in the cloud can result in both direct and indirect costs. These include ransom payments, regulatory fines, legal fees, reputational damage, and operational downtime.

Cloud security failure financial impact statistics:

44. Average breach cost: $4.24 million.
45. 86% of IT leaders reported losses exceeding $500,000 due to cloud account hijacking.
46. 33% of companies prioritize cloud security in their budgets.
47. Nearly half of all breaches expose personally identifiable information (PII).
48. Downtime and productivity loss are frequent indirect consequences.

Sources: IBM, Proofpoint (Ponemon), PWC

Preventive Measures and Adoption Statistics

To combat rising threats, companies are investing in encryption, zero trust architectures, and continuous security validation. However, the implementation is still uneven across the industry.

Preventive measures and adoption statistics:

49. Fewer than 10% of companies encrypt over 80% of sensitive cloud data.
50. 47% of cloud-stored data is classified as sensitive.
51. 55% use encryption key rotation tools.
52. Only 26% use cloud security posture management (CSPM).
53. 91% see AI as a priority for future security strategies.
54. The zero trust market is projected to reach $60 billion by 2027.

Sources: Thales, Check Point, Globe Newswire

Statistics of Cloud Security Market Growth

The global demand for cloud security solutions is growing in response to increasing threats. Enterprises are driving spending on prevention, detection, and incident response technologies.

Cloud security market statistics:

55. The cloud security market was worth $20.54 billion in 2022.
56. Expected to reach $148.3 billion by 2032.
57. Cloud security posture management (CSPM) projected at $15.6 billion by 2033.
58. Cloud database security is projected to grow from $10.13 billion to $50 billion by 2029.
59. Security software spending is projected at $7 billion in 2025.
60. 87% of organizations have adopted multi-cloud strategies.
61. 72% use a hybrid cloud setup (public and private).

Sources: Globe Newswire, Market.us, Flexera

Supporting Cloud Security with Exabeam

As organizations move more critical workloads to the cloud, the need for unified, intelligent threat detection becomes essential. Exabeam enhances cloud security by applying advanced behavioral analytics and AI-driven automation across both on-premises and cloud environments—ensuring threats don’t go unnoticed, regardless of where data resides.

Here’s how Exabeam strengthens cloud security:

• Detects cloud-based threats earlier
  By baselining normal user and system behavior, Exabeam identifies deviations across cloud accounts, SaaS apps, and hybrid infrastructures. This enables early detection of account hijacking, privilege abuse, and insider threats that bypass traditional rule-based detection.
• Brings visibility to blind spots
  Exabeam correlates signals from cloud-native tools (like AWS CloudTrail or Azure AD logs) with on-prem telemetry, bridging the gap between cloud and enterprise systems. Security teams gain a full timeline of user and asset activity to understand incident scope across environments.
• Stops lateral movement in hybrid or multi-cloud
  Cloud breaches often escalate when attackers pivot between systems. Exabeam tracks access behaviors across disconnected cloud services, spotting lateral movement and escalating risk in real time.
• Unifies multi-cloud detection strategies
  Security teams struggling with siloed tools across AWS, GCP, Azure, and SaaS apps can use Exabeam to unify detection and response. The platform normalizes logs, enriches them with context, and delivers consistent analytics across providers.Improves incident response efficiency
  Smart Timelines automatically stitch together events from different cloud sources, eliminating manual log correlation. Analysts see the who, what, when, and how of incidents without the delay.
• Supports Zero Trust and Identity-Centric Models
  Exabeam reinforces Zero Trust strategies by monitoring identity behaviors and access anomalies—even when credentials are technically valid. This helps reduce over-reliance on perimeter defenses and static policies.
• Cloud-native and SIEM-flexible
  Exabeam can work alongside your current SIEM or replace it entirely with Exabeam New-Scale SIEM. Use Exabeam’s New-Scale Analytics to augment your cloud telemetry or deploy as a full cloud-native platform for end-to-end threat detection and response.

To learn more about advancing your AI strategy in security operations and the cloud, read the brief What Comes Next for Your AI Cybersecurity Strategy.