Does hosting your corporate data in the cloud present a security risk? Yes, whenever corporate data is stored in any datacenter that is beyond your physical control. There is a increased chance of data breach. No matter what kind of encryption or security lingo anyone wants to tell you that your data is secure, it is probably not.
Not so full proof security
Whatever vendor you choose to host your corporate data may tell you its encrypted. Disk encryption, point to point encryption, etc., but this does not necessary guarantee that your data is safe. There will always be risk when moving data to another party. You are trusting the other party to not have a security lapse or any other issues. If the web hosting vendor has any security issues than your corporate data may get leaked.
Encrypted off site data is better
If you plan on storing corporate data offsite with another party. It is a better idea to encrypt that data yourself before you transmit it to the third party vendor. If the corporate data that you are hosting offsite is already encrypted than any security lapse on the part of the third party would only result in the leak of encrypted data. If your corporate data was not encrypted by you before being transmitted to the third party and the third party has a security breach. Your corporate data could end up floating on the web in a non-encrypted form.
Multi-layer of security
You should not trust your web hosting vendor’s security assurances. Most what is said and what is actually practiced may vary different. Even if there are contracts signed the other party may inadvertently have a lapse in security and the leaked data can do a lot of damage to your business if your competitor got a hold of it.