According to a new study commissioned by Schneider Electric, companies across industries are increasingly leveraging the cloud for security applications, with 42 percent of respondents indicating they currently run security applications in the cloud and almost half (45 percent) stating they are likely or extremely likely to transition security operations to the cloud in the future.

Organizations utilize the cloud for existing applications including data storage, human resources, email and security, and are eager to continue adopting it for security operations. Fifty seven percent of respondents believe the cloud is secure, with IT and technology professionals having the most confidence (78 percent), followed by education (70 percent), construction (68 percent) and financial services (52 percent). However some skeptics remain, with 18 percent of respondents indicating they do not trust the cloud.

Nearly three-fourths of respondents said network security is an important feature for security systems in their organizations. While the state of security continues to advance, respondents indicate security systems aren’t where they should be in order to adopt emerging technologies (54 percent), and despite business leaders being supportive of emerging technology (95 percent), many barriers to adoption exist.

Organizational/administrative barriers such as procedures, lack of perceived value and ROI were the top barriers identified that are inhibiting organizations from achieving their security goals.

While integration remains an obstacle to achieving security goals, almost 80 percent feel it is important to integrate security systems with other buildings and IT systems as part of an organization’s cloud strategy. Currently, photo ID badging, active directory, intrusion and CCTV are the top four systems organizations integrate into their security systems. The two top non-security systems organizations currently integrate with their security systems are automation and lighting. “Leveraging the cloud for security applications is becoming increasingly accepted – and required – as we move into a 24/7 digital world,” Steven Turney, Schneider Electric security program manager, said. “Especially for companies where security management improvements are imminent, it makes sense to consider innovation at every level of their organization to meet their security needs. As businesses are required to be more agile, the cloud helps to unify and simplify security measures so an organization’s data, people and assets are constantly protected.”

To learn more about the study, you can review the full results here.

This survey was conducted by Morar Consulting in December 2016 among more than 300 U.S. CIOs, CTOs, IT directors, security/facilities managers and operations personnel across industries including construction and trade, education, financial services, healthcare, IT/technology, manufacturing and industrial and professional and business services. Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation.