The inaugural HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy survey highlights the complexity and importance of security issues in cloud adoption, with 47% of respondents citing security concerns as their second biggest cloud inhibitor. Security was a top concern for financial services organizations and healthcare/biotech companies, but less so for entertainment/media firms and software/services companies. Geographically, security concerns were most pervasive in the Asia-Pacific region, while respondents in Europe/Middle East/Africa had the lowest percentage. Small businesses were least concerned about security, with 38% of these respondents calling it a top-three cloud inhibitor, compared to 55% of large enterprises. Security was also cited as a multi-cloud driver for 16% of respondents, particularly in the public sector and financial industry. Data/privacy protection was the top cloud security concern, citing staff and skills shortages as a major challenge. Almost 90% of respondents agreed that right tools are essential for managing multi-cloud environments, with infrastructure automation tools being critical for security, but only half of respondents currently using them in this area.