You have a job to do: secure your credit union’s infrastructure and communications. No small task.

But your information technology (IT) budget is flat or shrinking, security risks are ever-evolving, and complexity and regulations are growing. Your employees want to use their own smartphones, laptops, and tablets at work, making it even more difficult to protect your company’s information.

You want to use the potential of the cloud. But you are afraid of the security risks, uncertainty, impact on IT, and cost of migration. Sound familiar?

You certainly are not alone. Cloud migration and its associated benefits and challenges continue to inspire a great deal of debate in IT circles. There are many arguments for and against cloud adoption as a viable alternative to on-premise solutions.

Some of these arguments are based on fact, others are based on perception—while still others are based simply on fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Let’s briefly examine (and debunk) five common cloud security myths:

Myth #1: Security issues are the biggest obstacle to cloud adoption

This is simply not true. What remains the biggest obstacle to cloud adoption is the idea that the cloud is not as secure as on-premise systems.

In reality, the cloud has proven equally to more secure. It’s analogous to keeping your money safely in a credit union versus keeping it home under your mattress. Everyone knows a credit union is a better, safer option.

But when it comes to data, we haven’t quite gotten there yet. It’s all about perception versus reality.

The good news is that confidence in the cloud is on the rise. A recent study of U.S. IT decision-makers shows that 67% of companies have increased their confidence in the cloud over the last year.