A quarter of businesses are hesitant about signing up to cloud services because they feel they’re not secure enough, a study by Spiceworks has revealed.

Almost all (97%) of businesses think security is the biggest consideration when selecting a cloud-based file storage and sharing service, suggesting providers have a large role to play in convincing customers of the security benefits of using a cloud-based service.

Digging deeper into customer security concerns, 16% of businesses questioned by Spiceworks said they have experienced a security incident related to their cloud service within the last 12 months, including unauthorised access, stolen credentials or data theft.

What Spiceworks’ study did reveal is that businesses probably haven’t explored all security options to secure data. Although 57% restrict the services available for use by their employees and more than half have implemented user access controls, only 28% have introduced multi-factor authentication and have file sharing policy in place, while 74% don’t encrypt their data while it’s in transit. 78% don’t encrypt data at rest.

“It’s evident organizations are putting more trust into cloud storage services, but some are still hesitant despite the recent growth in adoption,” said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks. “Although cloud storage services often include features that help secure sensitive corporate information, there will always be risks involved when entrusting your data to a third party.”

Reliability (96%), cost (93%) and ease of use (93%) are also important factors decision makers look into when picking the right cloud service for their business.

Spiceworks’ study revealed the most popular cloud storage service is Microsoft’s OneDrive with 51% of organisations using it, 34% are using Google Drive and the same percentage have opted to use Dropbox.