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(c)iStock.com\/DundStock<\/em><\/p>\n More than half (56%) of businesses have expressed concern over security gaps at the point between their wide area network (WAN) and public cloud provider, according to a recent research study.<\/p>\n The report, conducted by IDG and commissioned by XO Communications, argues this potential pain point could compromise data used in the cloud. Less than two in five (38%) of the 55 survey respondents say they have good visibility into their WAN cloud connection points, while the biggest security nightmare for businesses is vulnerabilities being exploited by insiders (53% of respondents), data theft (47%) and the introduction of malware (35%).<\/p>\n “There’s definitely a vulnerability there, when you step back and take a look at the situation as a whole of connecting public cloud services to the data centre,” said John Grady, XO senior manager of solutions marketing. “That’s because you basically have two very separate environments coming together – protecting the data centre and protecting the corporate network – so IT managers have to ask themselves which approach makes the most sense.”<\/p>\n Of the 38% polled who say their visibility into the network is good, the unifying reason is because they have deployed a specific dedicated solution, such as a next generation firewall and managed security. Perhaps not surprisingly, XO is touting its own system to marry the network and the cloud provider, the snappily named XO MPLS IP-VPN service. Yet in turn, recent research argues the cloud is becoming more secure, but still at a high cost; 64% of enterprises polled by analyst house Clutch<\/a> argue cloud infrastructure is more secure than legacy systems.<\/p>\n Grady argues of XO’s platform a reason this publication has heard frequently; hypervendors have great appeal, but perhaps not for specific use cases. “There are such compelling economic reasons for using services such as AWS, but because it’s a public service, enterprises don’t have enough control,” he said. “By bringing this managed offering to the table, we can offer protection that existing solutions can’t match.”<\/p>\n