Ransomware, data breaches, insider threats, phishing scams… we’ve all seen the headlines. And, although these words, once reserved for IT departments, are becoming a part of everyday vocabulary, that doesn’t make them any less concerning. They have
Dean Mitchell, Director- Managed Services Practice at Logicalis UK
the power to derail your entire business- everything that you’ve built- within seconds.
Nowadays, cybercrime is big business, and you can guarantee that for every security solution churned out by vendors, someone, somewhere is creating a brand new malicious code to target other vulnerabilities you didn’t even know existed within your organisation. Add to that modern working habits, with more and more businesses needing to adopt cloud and IoT for day-to-day operations, to keep up with their competitors, but subsequently increasing the potential attack surface, and you soon see that organisations are under siege from all angles.
To state the obvious; cybersecurity is no longer optional.
And this is something that all CIOs are more than aware of. In fact, in our 2017 global CIO Survey, security was cited as the number one concern when it came to an increase in the use of cloud services, with 70% of respondents citing it as a challenge.
So the problem is common knowledge, but what’s the solution?
Well, if your automatic answer is ‘by investing in security products’, then you’re not alone. Many business leaders define ‘security strategy’ as lots of different solutions coming together to work as one protective shield. Each solution is built to defend against a single threat vector, so various email, cloud and web products all become separate pieces of a much larger security puzzle.
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Given the sheer volume of security products readily available, it’s no surprise that this puzzle doesn’t come cheap and that certain pieces aren’t as effective as others. But, surely the more products you deploy- effective or otherwise- the more significant your overall security capabilities and the better the protection for your organisation. After all, it’s better to be safe, and slightly out of pocket, than sorry… right?
It’s an easy trap to fall into.
In reality, a growing number of point solutions patched together is no longer an effective strategy. Instead, this method compounds complexity and creates the very vulnerabilities that it is meant to be mitigating against.
This is because security devices raise an alert for each threat that they detect- that’s how they work. And when you have multiple tools in place, each detecting multiple threats, the chances are that alerts will be going off almost constantly. This is fine; it shows that the solutions are working.
But, it’s unlikely that a single organisation will have the manpower needed to deal with each alert simultaneously. Instead, overwhelmed and underresourced IT teams will probably try to prioritise and as a result many of the alerts, and therefore threats, are ignored, making your organisation vulnerable.
So, when it comes to protecting your business, spending thousands and thousands of pounds worth of your budget on product alone is futile. It’s clear that the ‘best of breed approach’ has had its day, with an increasing number of organisations coming to the realisation that it’s not about how many solutions you have in place, it’s about how you’re using them.
A problem shared is a problem halved
To simplify things, you can strip your security strategy back to three key areas that all need to be done well; threat insight, vulnerability management and managed endpoint security.
Then, you need to make sure that the solutions you have within these areas are being used correctly. The easiest way to do this, and to make the most out of your resources, is to undertake a collaborative approach.
Take the heat off your own IT team and share the security burden with a partner who can help you to plug the gaps with managed solutions like:
– Managed SIEM/SIRM- A Security Incident Event Management service working in conjunction with a Security Incident Response Management service will provide optimal threat insights. It will solve the biggest and longest headache for your internal IT team- the one that began when you started installing security solutions… External engineering teams will analyse and, effectively, filter the never-ending stream of alerts so that, before they even reach your team, they are prioritised in terms of risk to your business and have clear actions on how to stop them in their tracks.
– Patch management- By combining patch management services with existing vulnerability scanning in a single service you can achieve optimal vulnerability management. Believe it or not, this service will fill any gaps in your security wall automatically. This is because networks will be regularly scanned for vulnerabilities with any intel gathered then being rolled into a patching program. Obviously, this will significantly reduce the time between when a vulnerability is identified and when it is patched.
– Security device management- This incorporates all endpoint security, including antivirus solutions, firewalls and device control, as a single managed service. Delivered via software on laptops, desktops and servers, the service can also detect rogue devices attaching to the network and provide web filtering.
The bottom line is that cybersecurity is not about product. It’s about people, processes and technology working coherently to manage risk and protect your organisation. Often, working collaboratively with providers who can manage your security can be the better option. They will have the resourcing and the skillset to help you deal with any potential threats, while offering more peace of mind.
Today, a third of CIOs see security as the most prominent barrier towards digital transformation. Outsourcing can change that by granting your internal IT teams the gift of time… time that can be used to pursue other areas of your business’ IT strategy.
