Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Now Define Enterprise IT (88%)
Most enterprises are no longer operating in a single cloud or a clean, centralized architecture. Hybrid and multi-cloud setups have become the norm rather than the exception. Nearly nine out of ten organizations now run workloads across a mix of public clouds, private infrastructure, SaaS platforms, and on-prem environments. A majority rely on two or more cloud providers for systems that matter to the business.
These environments are rarely designed in one motion. They grow through acquisitions, regional expansion, new digital initiatives, and AI experimentation. Each step adds services, identities, permissions, and data flows. While cloud platforms are built to scale technically, security teams are left managing environments that are increasingly difficult to see in full.
The result is not just more complexity. It is less certainty about what is exposed, what is misconfigured, and what is at risk at any given moment.
Rising Budgets, Declining Confidence in Real-Time Defense (66%)
Cloud security budgets are going up. A significant share of overall security spending is now directed toward protecting cloud environments, and many organizations expect that number to rise further. Yet confidence in cloud threat detection and response is declining.
Two-thirds of security teams surveyed say they are not strongly confident in their ability to detect and respond to cloud threats in real time. This is a telling metric. It reflects an operational reality where tools exist, alerts fire, and dashboards fill up, but response still lags behind how quickly cloud risks emerge.
This disconnect points to a deeper issue. Security maturity is not keeping pace with cloud adoption, even when budgets are available.
Tool Sprawl Remains the Top Cloud Security Barrier (≈70%)
One of the most consistent findings across the report is the impact of tool sprawl. As cloud environments expand, security stacks tend to expand with them. New tools are added to address new risks, often without replacing older ones or integrating them meaningfully.
Nearly 70 percent of organizations cite fragmented tooling and visibility gaps as their biggest cloud security challenges. In practice, this means security teams are forced to manually piece together context from systems that were never designed to work as one. Alerts arrive without shared understanding of identity, workload behavior, or data sensitivity.
In environments that change by the hour, this kind of fragmentation slows down decisions and increases the likelihood that real issues are missed.
AI Has Compressed the Window Between Exposure and Exploitation
Attackers are not waiting for defenders to catch up. Automation and AI are already being used to scan cloud environments for weaknesses at a speed no human-led process can match. Misconfigurations, over-permissioned identities, and exposed data can now be discovered and exploited in compressed timeframes.
At the same time, most organizations are still early in using automation defensively. For many, automation stops at generating alerts. Only a small percentage have reached a point where routine issues can be remediated without manual intervention.
This imbalance matters. When threats move at machine speed and defenses rely on human workflows, response becomes reactive by design.
Identity, Misconfiguration, and Data Exposure Lead Cloud Risk (77%, 70%, 66%)
The report reinforces what many security teams already experience daily. Identity and access management remains the most significant cloud risk, followed closely by misconfigurations and data exposure.
These risks are rarely isolated. A misconfigured service combined with excessive permissions can quickly lead to sensitive data being exposed across multiple environments. In hybrid and multi-cloud setups, enforcing consistent policies across providers becomes increasingly difficult, especially when visibility is fragmented.
Without centralized insight into identities, permissions, and data movement, security teams are left managing symptoms rather than root causes.
Security Teams Are Overextended as the Skills Gap Persists (74%)
Technology challenges are compounded by people constraints. A large majority of organizations report ongoing shortages of skilled cybersecurity professionals, particularly in cloud-focused roles that require expertise across infrastructure, identity, applications, and data.
At the same time, many organizations acknowledge that their cloud security programs are still in early stages of maturity. This combination creates an operational strain. Teams are expected to secure fast-changing environments with limited capacity, limited automation, and tools that do not always work well together.
In this context, missed signals and delayed responses are structural outcomes, not individual failures.
A Clear Shift Toward Unified Security Platforms (64%)
One of the clearest directional signals in the report is a growing preference for consolidation. When asked how they would design their security strategy today, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would choose a more unified, platform-based approach rather than assembling multiple point solutions.
This shift is not about reducing tools for the sake of simplicity alone. It reflects a need for shared context, unified policies, and coordinated response across cloud, network, and application layers. Security teams want systems that reduce manual effort and help them understand risk across the environment as a whole.
In highly dynamic cloud environments, integration is no longer optional. It is foundational.
Cloud Security Must Reflect How Cloud Actually Operates
The core message emerging from the data is straightforward. Cloud environments are fluid, distributed, and increasingly automated. Security models built for static infrastructure and manual oversight are no longer sufficient.
Effective cloud security now depends on continuous visibility, reduced fragmentation, and automation that goes beyond alerting. It also requires acknowledging that skills shortages are not temporary and designing security operations that can scale without relying solely on additional headcount.
For organizations pursuing AI-driven initiatives, these foundations become even more critical. AI workloads amplify both opportunity and risk, and weak cloud security can quickly undermine the value of innovation.
Why This Matters Specifically for UAE Enterprises
For enterprises in the UAE, the findings of this report are particularly relevant. Organizations across the region are accelerating cloud adoption while simultaneously investing in AI, data-driven services, and digital public and private sector initiatives. These programs often span multiple cloud providers, regional data centers, SaaS platforms, and cross-border operations.
At the same time, UAE organizations operate under growing regulatory expectations around data protection, resilience, and operational transparency. In such an environment, fragmented security tools and limited visibility introduce not just technical risk, but governance and compliance risk as well.
Closing the cloud security complexity gap for UAE enterprises will require more than incremental tooling. It calls for clearer architectural decisions, stronger alignment between cloud and security teams, and platforms that provide consistent visibility and control across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
This is where UAE organizations have an opportunity to move ahead of the curve by addressing complexity early, rather than allowing it to accumulate as cloud and AI initiatives scale.
