Security is often reported as one of the top concerns or barriers to cloud computing adoption for businesses. To help dispel this perception, today Microsoft released research that shows that small and medium sized businesses (SMB) are gaining significant IT security benefits from using the cloud.

The study, which was commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by research company comScore, polled SMB companies in the U.S., Singapore, Malaysia, India and Hong Kong markets.

The U.S. findings show benefits in three main areas:

• Time Savings: 32 percent of U.S. companies say they spend less time worrying about the threat of cyber-attacks.
• Money Savings: SMBs that use the cloud are nearly 6x more likely to have decreased the total amount spent on security than SMBs not using the cloud.
• Improved Security: 35 percent of U.S. companies have experienced noticeably higher levels of security since moving to the cloud.

Time and money spent managing security prior to using cloud services is being re-invested by SMBs to grow their business and be more competitive.

You can read more about the study on Microsoft News Center and the Trustworthy Computing Blog.