Report: 95% of IT leaders say Log4shell was ‘major wake-up call’ for cloud security

According to a new report by Valtix, 95% of IT leaders believe that Log4Shell was a major wake-up call for cloud security, changing it permanently. The report highlights key trends in cloud workload security following Log4Shell, including insights into patching efforts and business impacts that still continue into 2022.

In 2021, Log4Shell was exploited and shook the entire global cybersecurity landscape. The humble piece of open-source software – ubiquitous with enterprise apps and cloud services – quickly became the worry of IT teams, executives and boards, as they scrambled to protect their most valuable data, systems and platforms.

The research found that 87% feel less confident about their cloud security now than they did prior to the incident. The research also found that even 3 months after the incident, 77% of IT leaders are still dealing with Log4J patching with 83% stating that Log4Shell has impacted their ability to address business needs. Most companies still lack clear visibility into their cloud environment, leaving many IT leaders in the dark of what is actually happening within this environment. And after the Log4Shell incident, cloud visibility has become more crucial than ever.

Log4J woke up the IT world, making leaders aware of just how brittle their defenses actually are in the cloud. While public clouds offer new opportunities to modernize and transform organizations, many organizations have struggled to find a cloud security operating model built for a more dynamic, distributed, and exposed environment than their legacy datacenter. IT and security leaders are in a precarious state as they continue dealing with Log4J while at the same time looking to invest in cloud security technology that will help them be ready for the next incident.

In March 2022, Valtix worked with an independent research firm to survey 200 cloud security leaders across the U.S. to better understand how the incident changed how IT teams look at and secure their cloud workloads in the aftermath of Log4Shell.

Read the full report by Valtix.