Fortinet Shines Light on Top Cloud Security ConcernsFortinet Shines Light on Top Cloud Security Concerns

Compliance and security concerns remain top barriers to cloud adoption, according to Fortinet’s 2025 State of Cloud Security Report.

The cloud security report is based on input from more than 800 cybersecurity professionals across industries and geographies.

Among key findings:

The Fortinet report shows 97% prefer unified cloud security platforms with centralized dashboards, while 67% are implementing cloud security posture management (CSPM) and cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP) to protect cloud environments.

Most Surprising Finding in Cloud Security Report

Vincent Hwang, vice president of cloud security at Fortinet, said it’s surprising that despite the high rate of adoption of security solutions for cloud-native protection, 64% of organizations reported having little to no confidence in their ability to handle cloud threats in real-time.

Fortinet's Vincent Hwang

“As application modernization continues to evolve towards a hybrid and multicloud world, organizations are subject to increasing complexity and risks,” he said. “Hence, deploying standalone solutions like CSPM no longer make sense. Instead, organizations need to consider adopting platform-oriented solutions, like CNAPP, that integrate and consolidate multiple cloud security capabilities into a single solution and provide comprehensive code-to-cloud application security. This is critical for partners to keep in mind so that they can help their customers future-proof their clouds while helping them implement application modernization securely with confidence.”

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The challenge that most stood out was the effect of the ongoing skills shortage, with 95% being moderately to extremely concerned and 76% being directly impacted, Hwang said.

“This can be mitigated with automation and training of existing staff when the option to hire external resources is not always feasible,” he said. “We view this as a great opportunity for our channel partners to bring in their expertise to help offset and alleviate this pain point.”

The threats that affect data are numerous, from malware to insider threats, and have cascading effects including reputation, fiscal and compliance damage, Hwang said.

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“Most organizations are leveraging hybrid or multicloud environments, and this leaves visibility gaps,” he said. “This is further exacerbated by the lack of adequate cybersecurity skills and associated human resources to properly manage security across an organization's entire cloud and application footprint. The best initial step an organization can take is finding a solution that provides comprehensive visibility across their entire estate.”

Many experts have predicted that consolidation is the biggest priority for CISOs in 2025, Hwang said. This report helps validate this prediction, with 97% of organizations saying it would be moderately to extremely helpful to have a unified cloud security platform with a single dashboard.

“Partners can help their customers by seeking out such platforms that can help reduce their tool sprawl and further close security gaps, improving their security posture,” he said.

Also this week, Fortinet confirmed exploitation of a critical-rated vulnerability in its FortiGate firewalls. Fortinet made patches available. However, security researchers have warned hackers have been exploiting the vulnerability since last month.