A new report by Proofpoint showed that the average cost of cloud account compromises reached $6.2 million over a year.

Indeed, 68% of IT professionals in the US believe that cloud account takeovers represent a greater security risk to their organizations as most of them noticed a rise in the cyber attacks in the cloud over the past year. The study revealed that Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace accounts are the most targeted, through phishing-based attacks.

Hence, it was reported that organizations experience an annual average of 138 hours of application downtime in the past year.

Besides, only 44% of respondents think their organizations have clearly defined roles and levels of accountability for securing their cloud data. Fewer than 40% reported that their organizations are vigilant in conducting cloud app assessments before deployment. 75% also stated that the use of cloud apps without IT approval is a critical security risk. However, very few organizations are aware of all the cloud platforms.

Therefore, the study showed that cloud account compromises and sensitive information loss can be very harmful to businesses, as well as damage brand reputation and cost organizations millions.