In today's increasingly flexible work environment, many organizations implement and rely on cloud services like Salesforce®, Google Apps for Business™, Microsoft® Office 365™ and Box to streamline business functions, increase resource utilization and enhance corporate elasticity. Yet without proper data protection, enterprises run the risk of exposing sensitive, proprietary information.

Cloud service providers (CSPs) and their customers share responsibility for security. While cloud service providers have seen improvements in securing their platforms and offering tools to help with security, customers find it difficult to keep up with all of the responsibilities related to securing their apps. Gartner predicts that through 2020, 95 percent of cloud security failures will be the customer's fault.

To avoid such failures, Ganesh Kirti, CTO of Palerra, has put together a list of the five most common mistakes that enterprises make and provides suggestions for keeping your cloud environment safe moving forward.